A Fixed-Point Paradox
by LowTide1322
Summary: An AU starting off from the latter half of the Arrowverse current seasons (2016-2017). What would happen if Time itself no longer existed due to the most unexpected aberration? How would the "Crisis" in 2024 be connected? Follow the heroes as they team up again to fight each of their greatest evils.
1. Team-up

**Hello! This is a multi-chapter AU story that includes The Flash, Arrow, DC's Legends of Tomorrow, and Supergirl. It deviates from the original plot after/during LoT 2x17, Flash 2x21/2x22, Arrow 2x21, and Supergirl 2x19/2x20. So, whatever happens in the season finales doesn't have any affect on what happens in this story. I think I'll be better at updating this time, but Finals are coming up so I won't be able to write as much. But please, enjoy the read, and let me know what you think! -LowTide1322**

* * *

Chapter 1: Team-up

 _ **The Waverider**_

Sara extended her hand outwards to Rip. She was going to miss him, that was for sure. Even after all this time without him, he still felt like her captain, like she had so much left to learn from him. But here he was, asking _her_ permission to leave. She smiled as Rip shook her hand.

"Stay out of trouble," she said.

"Well, without you lot," he joked, "that'll actually be quite easy." He began to walk away and Sara grinned again. That would most likely be true.

Sara hesitantly turned around to go back towards the bridge, when suddenly there was a loud _bang_ and found herself thrown into the wall. Rip eventually slid down alongside her.

He sighed. "I spoke too soon, didn't I?" he said just loud enough over the blaring sirens that sounded all throughout the Waverider.

Sara rolled her eyes as they scrambled to stand. The timeship was tipping making it nearly impossible to move, let alone run. She thought that the worst of the time storms were over, but apparently their meeting with themselves caused much more destruction than any of them would have predicted.

"Is this another time storm?" Sara yelled over the alarms.

"It would appear so, but this feels much bigger than the last one; almost as if time is ripping itself apart!"

"What the hell does that even mean?!" They continued to stumble through the corridors of the Waverider. When she would be strolling about the ship, Sara felt like she could get from one end to the other in no time. Now? It felt like eternity. Whatever caused the timestream to behave this way, whether it was the Legends or some large time aberration, she wasn't sure they'd be able to fix it. If Rip was frightened, then there should have been good reason for her to be, too.

Finally, after what felt like hours of stumbling and crashing and falling through the hallways of the Waverider, Rip and Sara made it to the bridge where the rest of the team seemed to have gathered. Well, more like each clinging to one another or a chair of the Waverider. Through the window in front of the control system, the team could see the usual green of the time stream flashing with what looked like black lightning.

"Dear God…" Rip mumbled as he watched the time stream flash in and out before their eyes. This—this couldn't just be any time storm, time quake, or anything the Time Masters had prepared him for. Time was literally fading out of existence, and he didn't want to know what that meant for the Waverider.

The flashing began to subside outside the time ship, only to reveal a gaping hole in the time stream; an abyss where futures upon futures were supposed to be written. Now, they were all gone. The Waverider suddenly became eerily still and lightly kept bouncing off of the black hole rather than falling in, like there was a soft wall in front of them.

Jax was the first to speak. "What...what just happened?" came his shaky voice.

Rip slowly rose from behind one of the chairs in the control room.

"I'm not entirely sure, Mr. Jackson, but I've got a very bad feeling…" He strode to the main console, "Gideon?"

The grainy image of the AI appeared before the Legends, flickering in and out due to the damages done to the ship.

"There has been a massive aberration in the time stream. Any path forward from this point on no longer exists," the AI explained.

"And what does that mean?" Nate stumbled as he tried to stand up.

"Time does not exist past the date April 25th, 2024."

The Legends all stared at each other in disbelief. They'd dealt with nearly everything that could be wrong with time, but this...this was so much different—so much worse.

"Gideon, uh, care to elaborate? How could time not _exist_?" Ray asked after a long beat of silence.

"On April 25th, 2024, the multiverse in its entirety is destroyed; and time along with it," Gideon projected images of Central City and Star City of Earth-1 enveloped in red skies. And then the sky—

The team looked on in horror as the sky itself seemed to split open; dark matter seeping into the world and then...nothing. Thankfully, the projection ended and the horrible picture disintegrated.

Professor Stein thought that the images looked strangely familiar, when suddenly he remembered. The newspaper article that Eobard Thawne kept in the time vault at STAR Labs. One of the headlines read "Red Skies Vanish", and it seemed that in the future the skies remained red, and the multiverse ended because of it.

"I've seen these images before," Stein admitted. "Eobard Thawne's time vault back at STAR Labs, he had a newspaper from the year 2024 with a headline that read 'Red Skies Vanish'. Evidently, this new aberration causes the 'red skies' to continue to exist and destroy the multiverse."

"Wait, didn't we just defeat Thawne?" Mick piped up.

"But you mean the Eobard Thawne of 2014 and 2015 who was disguised as Harrison Wells, right Grey?" Jax helped clarify. It was easy to tell what the older man meant due to them having a psychic link. Jax could even picture the article that Stein was talking about. The more he pictured it in his head though, the more he noticed a headline that the professor failed to mention. "But, what about that other headline, 'Flash Missing, Vanishes in Crisis'? Is that about Barry?"

"I believe so. Perhaps Mr. Allen's Flashpoint is the aberration that caused this—"

"I think it's time we stop blaming Barry for things because of Flashpoint. We screwed up too when we went back and interacted with ourselves. We're no better." This realization dawned on Sara. She'd been so mad at the speedster for messing with time when she first heard about his mistake. But, she'd gone and done basically the same thing, if not worse, and she felt like such a hypocrite. Sara inwardly cringed thinking back on how she addressed Barry that day when all the teams were together to face the Dominators.

"I think figuring out what the aberration was is a good place to start as any. Gideon, can you tell us when the aberration takes place and what it is?" Amaya stepped into the conversation. She'd just decided to make a new future with Nate, and she didn't want that to all be for nothing now that there apparently was no future to be had.

"Of course. The aberration takes place May 22nd, 2017. The cause of the aberration itself is the death of Barry Allen, otherwise known as the Flash."

The silence in the room earlier was as loud as church bells compared to the silence that filled the main cortex now.

Even still, Gideon continued. "Barry Allen is meant to die on April 25th, 2024 in what is otherwise known as the Crisis on Infinite Earths. With his death, the Flash destroys the weapon that now destroys the multiverse. Captain Hunter is very familiarized with this event as well, should you have questions—"

"That's enough, Gideon!" Rip interjected. Yes, he'd always known that Barry Allen was supposed to die in the Crisis on Infinite Earths and possibly come back through the speed force (that bit was still unclear to him). He withheld this information from the team because he knew some of them would try to change the future to save their friends, and that would only make the situation worse. The Crisis on Infinite Earths was much like a fixed point in time that if interfered with would have devastating consequences on the time stream (the idea "fixed point" always bothered him, but they'd now seen first hand what an interference with one would do).

"Rip, please tell me Gideon is lying and you never knew about this." Sara didn't want to believe that Rip knew how close the world came to ending, and never went to help. "You knew that the multiverse was under attack and you never told us? We could have done something!"

"The thing is you all _do_ try your hardest, but Barry still has to die, in any variation of the timeline. He's the only one who was fast enough to do it. But now it appears that he never does save the multiverse because he's already dead. That is what we have to focus on _right now_."

Nate crossed his arms over his chest and sighed. "So either way; we leave time as it is and Barry is dead, or we change it and Barry dies anyways. That doesn't seem fair."

"That, unfortunately, is the tragedy of the Flash. But he does die a hero…" Rip trailed off and hung his head. There really was no upside to this, so he didn't know why he even bothered trying to find one.

After a pause, Sara added, "No. A legend."

"You're right," Ray said. "And Rip's right too. We need to get the future back, our futures back, which means we need to fix this aberration."

"But we don't even know what happened. How are we supposed to stop this?" Amaya asked.

"I guess we have to find out what happened by seeing our friends in the aftermath," Sara suggested. She wished she could help beforehand but this was going to be the easiest way to figure out how to prevent the aberration. "Gideon, set a course for May 25th, 2017."

* * *

 _ **1 week earlier**_

 _ **Central City, 2017**_

May 23rd was coming way too fast, and Barry didn't have enough time. Usually, he had plenty, what with having super speed and all. But it was that same speed that apparently turns him, or at least a version of him, crazy in the future. So crazy that he'd actually kill the love of his life just to keep it. This present version of Barry would give his life to help save any of his friends. He could never understand why Savitar would do the things he does.

But if Savitar wins, then Barry will find out why soon enough.

Which was why he needed to defeat the evil speedster once and for all. Tracy had been slowly getting the speed gun—or bazooka, whatever H.R. wanted to call it—ready to trap the evil speedster in the Speed Force, just like Barry will do in the future.

Barry knew that saving Iris was his burden, that he himself had to do it, but he was nowhere near fast enough. The Speed Force wanted him to figure it out on his own, but they hadn't granted him the speed to do so.

He didn't want to admit it, but he needed more help. He needed someone even Savitar would have trouble defeating. Barry knew that by even thinking about this, Savitar knew his plan, but it didn't matter.

There was no way anyone could stop Supergirl.

"Barry?"

He heard a voice from behind him in the STAR Labs cortex. Iris's voice. He'd been so deep in thought he hadn't heard what the team was talking about.

"Yeah?" he turned to face his fiancée.

"You okay? I think we lost you for a minute there."

"Oh, yeah, I'm good, just thinking," he said. "Actually, I have an idea that could help us stop Savitar until Tracy can finish the speed gun—"

"—bazooka!" H.R. chimed in.

"Okay, speed bazooka. Anyways, I think it's time for another team-up."

A few hours passed as Barry and Cisco prepared to open another breach to Earth-38. At first, the team wasn't all on board with Barry's decision, especially since Savitar would know what they were up to. But, so far the evil speedster hadn't stopped them so maybe he didn't know about their plan yet. They also weren't sure that bringing Supergirl into the equation would be the right move, but if it meant preventing Iris's death then they couldn't go against it.

"Alright. You have one hour to find Kara and bring her back to this breach. Once she's here, we can start making a game plan," Cisco instructed Barry. "You sure this is the right thing to do?"

"I'm sure. I could never defeat Supergirl, so Savitar will never be able to either. Kara can help us buy some time for Tracy to finish the gun and find a sufficient power source. This will work, Cisco. I know it."

"Just make it back okay, Barr," Iris said and then hugged him.

"I'll always come home to you, Iris. Don't worry," he smiled and addressed the whole team, "I'll be back in a Flash." And with that, Barry sped into the breach that Cisco created and was on his way to Earth-38.

While he was going through the breach, he saw flashes of some strange images. One was of the team Legends' time ship being thrown around in what looked like a green and black wormhole. Then, there was another image of red skies over Central City. The pictures flashed again and he saw an image that was—oh God, he thought. The third image was of Savitar driving a glowing green spike through Kara Zor-El's chest.

Before he had time to react, Barry found himself in the middle of the DEO.

Several Agents had their guns trained on him, but J'onn stood in front of them and motioned for them all to stand down. Mon-El and Alex walked up next to him.

"Well, Mr. Allen. It's a pleasure to see you again. But might I ask what you're doing here?" The martian asked.

Still shocked from the images he saw in the portal, Barry stuttered before finding the right words to respond. "Uh, well, uh, I need Ka—Supergirl's help from, um, this, uh, evil speedster on my earth, threatens to...do something after he kills the love of my life…"

"Oh, so you need my help with Savitar now do you?" Kara flew in and landed in the DEO in front of Barry. She hugged him upon seeing him, and Mon-El narrowed his eyes at this. "It's so good to see you! I'm really liking all these extra-dimensional visits."

"It's good to see you too, Girl of Steel. I wish I was here just to visit, but I need your help again. I know you don't owe me anything, but—"

"You're my super-friend, remember? If you _ever_ need help, I'm there. So, what are we up against this time?" Kara asked. She noticed all the DEO agents staring at the two of them and blushed. The term "super-friend" was their inside joke, but to everyone else if probably sounded really stupid. "Hey, you know what? Why don't we go and talk somewhere in private."

She lead him into one of the back rooms of the DEO, and J'onn, Alex, and Mon-El followed behind.

Barry filled them all in about what had happened since the last time they all were together. He told them about Abra Cadabra and traveling to his future self to figure out who Savitar was, but still didn't get any information.

"Did you ever find out Savitar's identity?" Alex asked.

It took awhile for Barry to respond. He still didn't want to believe it himself that he had become his own worst enemy that was going to kill Iris. The thought made him cringe. Not to mention that Kara might not want to help him once he told her.

"Savitar...it's me. Future me, anyway. Apparently I create a time remnant that was supposed to die, and didn't, and then felt shunned by me and my friends. And then he, or I, go off the deep end."

The three aliens and human stared at the speedster in disbelief. Mon-El moved slightly to stand in front of Kara almost as if on instinct. Barry turned away from them when he noticed this. Why would they want to help him? He had the potential to become a monster. And he didn't even mention the image that he saw in the breach of Savitar killing Kara with kryptonite.

Kara lightly shoved Mon-El out of the way and gave him a small glare before putting a hand on Barry's shoulder. "Hey, you're not Savitar. You're a good person, probably one of the best people I know. And I'm going to help you in whatever way I can."

"I'll come too—" J'onn began, but was cut off by Kara.

"No, J'onn. The DEO needs you here. All of you," she looked straight at Mon-El. She knew he would want to come with to try to protect her, but she didn't need protecting. National City needed all the help it could get.

"At least let me come with you," Alex said.

"No, Alex—"

"Kara, you're my sister, and I can't let anything happen to you. Besides, you guys could probably use another scientist on your team, right Barry?"

Barry nodded. With Caitlin gone, their team had gotten smaller and smaller. Alex Danvers would be a great addition to the team.

The group went back to the breach that sat in the main room of the DEO. Alex was saying goodbye to Maggie while Kara did the same with Mon-El.

"Just make sure you come back in one piece, all right? I know National City needs their Supergirl, but so do I," he said.

"Don't worry. I'll be fine."

Barry grimaced. If only he hadn't seen that one image on his way here, he wouldn't feel like he was leading Kara to her death. Maybe he should tell them, and stop this now—

"You ready, Scarlet Speedster?"

"Alright, let's do this," Barry replied after a pause. He grabbed hold of the Danvers sisters and went back through the breach. There were no images this time, thankfully, and before they knew it they were in the breach room on Earth-1.

"Welcome back to Earth Prime."

* * *

Savitar winced as he gained new memories that Barry Allen was currently creating. He smirked when he realized the Flash's plans.

"Good one, Barry. Bringing in the Girl of Steel. Well, mostly stupid." The god of Speed reached into his deactivated suit and grabbed a shard of kryptonite. "Does he really think I would go a day as Savitar without having some kryptonite handy?" he mumbled to himself.

"Well, _this_ is much more interesting," Killer Frost sauntered into their "lair". "But how are you going to draw them out?"

"If the Flash wants to bring in a new member to his team, then I will too. Hold down the fort here until I get back, will you?" Savitar phased into his suit and was gone in a flash of blue lightning.

In quite literally the blink of an eye, Savitar appeared in an abandoned warehouse in Star City.

A man in a black hood instantly turned around and shot an arrow at the speedster, but it simply bounced off of his armor.

Savitar chuckled. "Adrian Chase—"

"Who the hell are you? Tell me or I'll kill you," Prometheus cut him off.

"I'm not here to harm you, Chase, I'm here to offer my assistance in exchange for yours."

"I don't need your help. My plans are moving along perfectly—"

"Except they won't. I'm from the future, and I know exactly how your plan plays out. And I will tell you this right now: the Arrow, Green Arrow, or Oliver Queen, whatever you want to name him, wins. I can tell you what happens _if_ you help me out in return," Savitar explained.

Adrian thought this over. He had absolutely no reason to trust this...whatever this thing was. But, it did know that Queen was the Arrow and Green Arrow, and not many people knew that. Having a speedster do some of his work for him would probably shake Oliver up even more, make him call that freak in Central City, and then Prometheus could kill the Green Arrow's other teammate too. This was another perfect opportunity to break Oliver Queen, and Chase wasn't about to pass it up.

"Alright, fine. I help you, you help me. One condition; tell me who you are."

Savitar chuckled again as he knelt to the ground. He exited his suit as Prometheus removed his hood and mask. The two shook hands.

"I'm Savitar, the god of Speed. Or, as others know me, the Future Flash. I look forward to working together, Adrian Chase."

* * *

 **Thanks so much for reading! Review and let me know what you thought -LowTide1322**


	2. Preparation

**Here is the next chapter! So, I just watched all the finales...and I might use some of the ideas and plot points from them because they were all so good! (Am I the only one who felt really bad for Savitar in the Flash finale?) Also, please excuse any typos, I wanted to post this as soon as possible so there might be some. Anyways, enjoy! -LowTide1322**

 **( Disclaimer)**

* * *

Chapter 2: Preparation

 _ **Star City**_

Oliver strode into the Arrow Cave and threw he jacket on a chair. He'd been out all night searching for Chase, but still couldn't find the bastard.

"Any updates on where Chase could be? Felicity, find any links to him?" he asked.

Felicity sighed. "Unfortunately, no. But, there hasn't been any trail of murders, so that's an upside."

"Probably the only upside," Curtis mumbled.

The entire team gave out a sigh of exasperation. Chase had each simultaneously ruined each of their lives one way or another. The sooner they found him and threw him into a cell to rot, the better.

"Wait, I think I got something!" Felicity exclaimed. She just received a notification on the algorithm that she wrote earlier to pinpoint Chase's location.

The team raced to her computer all at once. What they saw didn't comfort them. The location for Chase kept moving all over the city, and even outside of it. He must have known they were close to tracking him and messed with Felicity's tech.

Felicity sat back in her chair. "Well, that worked wonderfully."

The team began to turn away when Dinah spotted something and pointed back to the monitor. "Look!"

That was odd, Felicity thought, it read that Chase had just moved from beyond the city limits onto their own location. This time, the location didn't jump to another, it really read that he was in the Arrow Cave.

"He better not have an explosive in the computers again…" Felicity reached back behind the monitor as if expecting to find a micro-bomb or any type of device.

"Felicity if he was gonna put a bomb in here, it wouldn't be there," Curtis said what the team was thinking.

"Hold on, something definitely is here. The proximity alarm just went off," Dinah said. As she said this, the lights in the room shut off completely, as did all of the tech. Oliver hesitantly reached for his bow and arrow and the rest of the team for their weapons. He wasn't ready to be the Green Arrow again yet, but he was far better at protecting his team with a bow than he ever would be with a gun.

"That's not creepy at all…" Thea mumbled and looked to Oliver for any possible explanation. He simply shook his head in response. Chase was known for playing games, this was probably just some other trick to freak them all out or distract the team from Prometheus's real objective.

They all started to believe it was just a power outage when flashes of blue lightning appeared around the room. The word popped into their heads all at once: speedster.

Only Oliver had experience fighting speedsters, and he had only beaten one once. In short, speedsters were not Team Arrow's forte. This speedster wasn't Barry, so who was it? And why was Chase's location somehow connected?

"Show yourself!" Oliver shouted. He was tired of games. He'd been forced to play for Prometheus for too long. "I know what you are."

Eventually, the blue flashes stopped, and the team was once again in complete darkness.

"Do you now, Oliver?" came an awfully familiar voice.

Felicity turned around to see the silhouette of Barry Allen, and gave a little yelp. "God! Barry, you scared me! What are you doing here—?"

"Felicity…" Oliver's voice was dangerously low. His bow was trained on the speedster. "Stay away from him."

Felicity turned to face Oliver and walked a few furious steps towards him. There wasn't any reason to freak out; it was just Barry. "Why?"

She turned around again and saw in better lighting a scarred face of her dear friend. Cisco had told her earlier the identity of Savitar, Barry's "greatest enemy", but she didn't want to believe it; she couldn't believe it. But now...now she had to.

"It's because I'm not Barry, Felicity," the god of Speed smirked. It'd been a long time since he saw _this_ team.

Even though in the future Oliver beats Prometheus, he became just as broken as Barry was in the aftermath of it all. Oliver had lost Thea just as Barry lost Iris. Both men were beyond repair, but they never spoke to each other about it. In fact, the last time that Savitar recalled them speaking to one another was at each of the funerals, but since then? Nothing. And the thought of that made his smirk fade into a harsh glare. Oliver never helped him in his time of need; he hated him for not turning back time to help save his sister. Did he care that Barry had lost the love of his life? No. He was just as bad as the rest of his so-called friends back in Central City. And for that, Savitar would show no mercy.

"Barry—" Dig tried to speak in the back of the group.

" _That's not my name_!"

The team flinched when Barry—no, Savitar—shouted this, even Oliver. How far could their friend have fallen to become like this? And how had their future selves let him get like this?

"What do you want?" Oliver growled, his voice sounding very much like that of the Green Arrow. "Why are you working with Prometheus?"

"Similar goals, similar plans. Lots of...similarities, don't you think, Oliver?" he replied. Oliver cringed at the familiar words. They were the close to the same ones Barry had said when he lied about being in Starling City three years ago. That felt like ages ago now for the original Team Arrow, but they could only imagine how long ago it must have been for the man standing before them now.

Felicity shook her head. No, this wasn't right. Barry had always been so kind, good, _pure_. He would never work with someone as evil as Chase. He would never hurt Iris, hurt his friends, hurt any of them. He was just broken; but not beyond repair. She refused to believe that. "He's just using you, Barr. Once he's done with you? You're just as well off as the rest of us."

Savitar turned to her and scoffed. "Do you really think I'm that stupid, Felicity? Or powerless? I am the god of Speed, and my ascension is nearing. Once that happens, Prometheus, the Green Arrow, the Flash...you'll all be bowing to me. But for now...I'll let Chase think he's in control."

"Why are you here, Savitar?" Thea growled. It would be a cold day in hell before she would bow to anyone, let alone some narcissistic clone of her friend.

"Doing Chase's dirty work, of course. I have this deal that if I do something for him, he does something for me, etc. You get the picture. I'm sorry we can't talk more but—" he phased back into his armor, and any recognizable voice was gone, "—we have to go. I have a little Queen who's just dying to meet his father's 'co workers'."

"We?" Curtis asked. As soon as he said this, he was whisked away in a flash of blue lightning. Next was Dinah, then Renée, Quentin, Felicity, Thea. Oliver could barely comprehend what was happening; all he could think about was that Prometheus had his son. He had William. Oliver suddenly noticed that John was now the only one left standing in the room.

"Oliver, you'll find us. Find your son. You'll beat Chase and Barry will beat Savitar. You can do this, man," Dig said an in an instant disappeared in a flash like the others. Oliver's bow slipped out of his hand and fell to the floor. In an instant, he lost everything; Chase had everything.

The only thing left for the Emerald Archer to do was scream at the top of his lungs.

* * *

 _ **Central City**_

"Kara, you can't fly in the speed lab!" Cisco shouted for the third time. It had been a day since Barry introduced Kara's sister Alex to the team and they all had been trying to come up with a game plan on how to stop Savitar. Eventually, Wally got on the subject of racing against Supergirl and the two high-tailed into the speed lab. The group decided to take a break on the plan and let Kara and Wally battle it out for fun. As soon as she started flying instead of running, the Girl of Steel created such strong winds that would pretty much knock someone off their feet if they tried to walk into the lab. This had happened to Cisco a number of times, and he was seriously tired of it.

Finally, after the third time being scolded, Kara decided to stop flying and landed in front of Cisco with Wally close behind. A smile threatened to appear on Barry's face, but he remembered the dire situation they were all in. It was two days until Iris's death; that is, if they didn't stop it. Barry also needed to somehow prevent Savitar from obtaining kryptonite and using it on Kara before it was too late.

Barry, Iris, Kara, Alex, and Joe headed back to the main cortex to continue planning their next move.

"Kara, do you think your heat vision could damage Savitar's armor somehow?" Barry asked.

"I don't see why not. Unless the metal originated from Krypton or if it's properties mimicked that of a Kryptonian," Alex answered for her sister. "It should power down the suit if not destroy it."

"Guys!" Cisco, Tracy and H.R. scurried into the cortex. "We found a sufficient power source for the bazooka. We could the power from some tech left over by the Dominators that's being kept at ARGUS. I tried to convince Lyla to let us use it, but she won't budge. Then I thought we could just steal it but there's a problem…" Cisco trailed off.

"What is it?" Barry asked.

Cisco sat down at one of the computers and pulled up a map of the ARGUS facility. "Once you step inside the building, you won't be able to tap into the speedforce. No metahumans can use their powers once inside. You'll be like any other human."

"They don't know how to block my powers, do they?" Kara asked. "I can be in and out with the power source before anyone would notice."

"That won't be necessary," Oliver Queen said as he entered the cortex. His clothes looked disheveled and he had bags under his eyes that indicated he hadn't slept in awhile.

"Ollie? What are you doing here?" the Scarlet Speedster asked. He'd heard that Oliver had his hands full with Prometheus, but he didn't think that he would need Barry's help.

"I can convince Lyla to get you a power source, or whatever you need to stop Savitar."

"Thanks but...why?"

Oliver sighed and rubbed his eyes. He'd spent the whole night riding his motorcycle to get to Central City. All that time, even now, his friends and family were being tortured, killed, who knows what else and he couldn't save them. He was powerless. "Savitar is working with Prometheus. He took my entire team but left me. I tried to track them but Felicity was always better at doing things like that…"

"Oliver...I'm so sorry. We're coming up with a plan to stop him and we will get your friends back," Kara rushed over to her friend and gave him a hug and he reluctantly hugged her back.

"Thanks Kara. But, uh, what are you doing here? Shouldn't you be on Earth-30-something?" Oliver broke the hug. He didn't really want to admit it, but he missed the alien once she left. He'd grown fond of their little team of three; Supergirl, Flash, and Green Arrow.

As soon as Oliver had mentioned that Savitar was working with Prometheus, Barry had hung his head. How could he be so stupid to think that Savitar wouldn't have a counter plan to having Supergirl in the equation? He was a future version of _himself_ for crying out loud. Now because of Barry, Oliver's friends (and his own) were in trouble, maybe even dead.

"I brought her here to help me take down Savitar," Barry confessed. "Everything I do, though, he remembers because he's lived it. He would know I have Supergirl with me, but I didn't care. I didn't think he'd try to work with someone else too. I didn't think—"

"You didn't think?" Oliver was close to yelling, but toned down his voice when Kara gave him a strange look, "Barry, they have _William_."

He didn't think it was possible, but Barry's heart sank even further. "God, Oliver I'm so sorry—"

"Wait, who's William?" Kara butted in.

"He's…" Oliver wasn't sure he should let anyone have this information, but what did it matter? The worst that could have happened already did. "He's my son."

Everyone but Barry gave him a surprised look, but they didn't say anything. No one took Oliver for the "father" type, so there must have been some long explanation as to how it was possible, but there wasn't time for it. It wasn't just that Iris's time was running out now, it was many of their friends.

"If we draw out Savitar tonight, we can still defeat him. Once we do that, we can capture him and get him to give up your friends' location. We can do this, Barry," Alex spoke up after awhile. She and Oliver met eyes. Alex outstretched her hand to him, "I'm Agent Alex Danvers of the DEO, and also Kara's sister. Well, no I'm not a Kryptonian, we're just adoptive sisters. You must be Oliver, obviously."

He took her hand and shook it. Oliver didn't want to ask questions about why they were adoptive sisters, so instead, he simply said, "It's a pleasure."

"She's right," Joe said. "If Oliver can get us the power source, then we can do this. All of us."

Barry thought this over. They had everyone and they could all take down Savitar and Prometheus all at once. Especially with Kara's help, their enemies would have a lot of trouble getting the upper hand. Barry looked to Oliver. The Green Arrow nodded; they needed to do this.

"Alright. Let's get started."

The team left to get ready to head out, but Joe stopped Iris and Cisco, keeping them in the cortex. "You said that in ARGUS metahumans have no powers, right?"

Cisco watched as Barry and the rest walked out of earshot. "Yes. Why?"

"That includes Savitar, doesn't it?"

Cisco nodded slowly, starting to understand what Joe's idea was. "Yeah. Even the philosopher's stone wouldn't function in there, so he wouldn't be able to access his speed. You think that we can protect Iris…?"

"I think that if you," Joe nodded to Iris, "are in there through all of this, Savitar won't be able to get to you on the 23rd, therefore we'll be messing up whatever predestined story Savitar is following."

"Joe, that's brilliant! Iris, you willing to do this? We can tell Lyla, and you can stay there until this all is over—"

"No, Cisco. Dad, I'm not leaving Barry alone in this—"

"Iris, it's better if you're out of harm's way. This is what could save you. Barry can take down Savitar without you, you know. He'll be okay," Joe cut her off. There was no way he was going to let her be out there with the rest of them. She'd be safe at ARGUS, and Savitar would never lay a finger on her.

After a few moments, Iris gave in. Barry promised he would always come home to her. She knew he'd always make good on that.

A few hours later, Barry stood in the time vault, staring at the newspaper article once again. He was ready to go, but he couldn't shake the feeling that he was doing something wrong. In his gut he knew that all of this was his fault and his responsibility. The speed force told him that saving Iris and stopping Savitar was his burden. But, here he was with a whole team of people out to stop his own foe.

Everything that happened since Flashpoint was on him, and he wouldn't be able to bear it if any of his friends got hurt or worse because of Savitar. He already saw that Kara was going to most likely be killed, and Barry didn't know if he could prevent that as much as he could prevent Iris's death.

And now Team Arrow was involved and Oliver's _son_. Barry was surprised the amount of guilt that he had didn't consume him already.

If it came down to it, Barry was willing to make the ultimate sacrifice to get rid of Savitar. The evil time remnant had said it wouldn't matter if Barry lived or not for Savitar to exist. Was that really true though? And if Barry was gone, how would the future end up; what would happen to this article?

"You ready to go?" Oliver walked in through the entrance to the time vault. He was wearing his Green Arrow suit once again, and Barry smiled slightly. It was good to see his friend take on the name of the archer again.

"Yeah, I was just thinking…"

"The future? Barry, we've been through this before—"

"What if I'm not in it? I mean, what do you think happens to this newspaper, the headline, the byline…"

Oliver let Barry trail off. He knew how guilty he must have felt for Savitar, for flashpoint. He'd felt the same guilt because of Slade and the Mirakuru, the Undertaking, Laurel, all of it. He didn't mean to snap at his friend earlier, but whenever William was brought into the line of fire, Oliver would do anything to get him back and protect him. And Barry was the easy one to blame instead of himself.

"It's not your fault. I'm sorry I snapped at you back there—"

Barry shook his head. "No, that's just it, Oliver; it _is_ my fault. All of this. I shouldn't have brought Kara into this. I let my hate for Savitar and my fear for Iris's life blind me into thinking that this would be a good idea. Now your son, Felicity, Dig, your team are in trouble because of my choice. And it all started with Flashpoint. The speed force told me that I would have to do this on my own, make my own sacrifices to take down Savitar, and I didn't listen. Try again to tell me that this isn't my fault."

"Barry, if I could, I would have tried to get Supergirl's help or your help or anyone, literally _anyone_ 's help to save my son. No one can do this alone. That's why we have allies and friends who can help us. Trust me, I have made plenty of mistakes. You say Savitar is your fault? Prometheus is mine. But I'm not going to let that guilt stop me from doing what needs to be done, the right way," Oliver replied.

"You're stronger than me, Oliver. You make the _right_ decisions and I make the selfish ones. Even after all that Prometheus has done, you still won't kill him. I was willing to kill Zoom. I'm willing to kill Savitar if it means saving Iris. That part of me that wants to make others feel the pain I feel exists, and it's where Savitar comes from." Barry pulled his cowl over his head, and walked over to Oliver to put a hand on his shoulder. "If something happens just...be better than me, Ollie."

"Barry—" before Oliver could blink, the scarlet speedster had left the time vault, leaving the Green Arrow alone. He stared at the newspaper article again. He never really gave much thought to the " _Flash Missing_ " part. It seemed that he could lose his friend in present, but apparently his friend his lost in the future too.

The same thought kept playing over and over in Oliver's mind and he kept trying to shove it back, but it would only resurface again.

Chase was right.

Everyone in Oliver's life would end up being touched by the darkness that follows the vigilante, the killer, that he once was. He'd hoped that Central City would stay the charming, sunny place that he used to grumble about, but now the darkness had spread here too. Not only that, but it had reached Barry Allen. The Flash, the hero that everyone loved and admired. Even Oliver admired his ability to work past his tragedies and continue fighting to protect those he loves. Now, he could hardly tell the difference between the two of them. And when— _if_ , he corrected himself—if Iris dies, Barry would be broken beyond repair. And that was something Oliver wouldn't bear to watch.

Oliver flipped his hood over his head and put on his mask. He took one last glance at the article and headed down to the cortex. They would do this. They would bring down Savitar and Chase, and Oliver would make sure both he and the Scarlet Speedster had a future.

He would be damned if he let the world be deprived of Barry Allen.

* * *

 **Thanks for reading! Please review and let me know what you think.**


	3. Fool Me Once

**Here is Chapter 3. Big thanks to everyone who's reviewed this story so far! This chapter has got a lot of dialogue... Finals are this week so I might not be able to update within the week but we'll see. Once finals are over I hope to get more chapters out in less time! Anyways, enjoy! -LowTide1322**

 **( Disclaimer)**

* * *

Chapter 3: Fool Me Once

 _ **Lian Yu**_

Darkness.

That's all Felicity was able to see for the past 8 hours. Being kidnapped really sucked in the first place, but when they put a sack over your head? Her glasses were pushing up against the bridge of her nose in the _most_ uncomfortable way, so that made it nearly ten times worse.

She could only hear muffled voices and footsteps around her. Eventually, the footsteps got louder and louder until she could feel the presence of someone standing over her.

All of a sudden, the bag was ripped off of her head and the light from outside exploded in front of her. Her glasses went flying off of her head and landed on the ground next to her. She had to squint so her eyes could adjust to the light and groped for wherever her glasses lay.

She noticed that Thea was next to her, and now with her glasses back on she could see Curtis nearby too.

"Ugh," she groaned. "What time zone is this?"

"I think you already know," Adrian Chase crouched down in front of them with a smug expression plastered in his face.

Thea glared at him and then took in her surroundings. The trees, the smell of salt-water… "Lian Yu," she concluded. "Why did you bring us here?"

"Well, Thea, this is where it all began for your brother. This is where it's all going to end. Oliver can try to stop me, but I know every move he's going to make."

"How?" Felicity sneered.

"Because I told him," Barry—no, Savitar said as he walked up in front of them. He winced and brought a hand up to his head, as if he were getting a migraine. Almost instantly, the pain he felt seemed to disappear and a smile spread across his scarred face. "And thanks to Barry, I know what they're planning right now."

Chase stood up and turned to his partner-in-crime. "Well?"

"They're going to try to use Supergirl to destroy my suit and then capture me," he laughed lightly, "pathetic of them, really."

"No, this is the perfect opportunity. You get captured, they'll interrogate you. You give up our location, Oliver will come straight to us. You might have to take one for the team, but…"

"I've been through far worse pain than any of them could ever inflict on me," Savitar said as he felt his scar burn at the memory of that one night. That night the god of Speed was born and Barry Allen was gone.

Felicity felt a pang of sympathy for the remnant of her friend. Whatever he'd been through must have been disastrous, and that scar looked like it went deeper than just on his skin. She shuddered at the thought of Barry being turned into the monster she saw before her.

"Their prison won't hold me, either. I'll get the information to Oliver, and he'll be here soon enough." He phased into his armor.

"Supergirl will destroy you! She has no weaknesses," Thea spat at the speedster. Savitar only chuckled.

"Unfortunately, nothing is all powerful, Thea. Everyone and everything has a weakness, you just have to find it," he said as he unsheathed the knives he held in his forearms of his suit. Except rather than being the same looking material as the armor, these weapons glowed an eerie color of bright green. "Kryptonite, found on the planet of Krypton. Any kryptonian exposed to this substance becomes as weak as any other human, and can die like any other human," he sheathed the knives again, leaving Curtis, Thea, and Felicity speechless. "I'll be back eventually." In a blue flash, Savitar was gone.

The three looked at each other in horror. Everything they could have prepared for to combat Chase or Savitar was useless. And now, their friend from another planet on another Earth might be about to die. No, they all thought. This situation couldn't get any worse.

* * *

 _ **Central City**_

"Are you sure this is the right spot?" Kara whispered to the group. The small party consisted of her, Barry, Oliver, Cisco, and Alex. They'd arrived at an abandoned warehouse that didn't seem to have had any life in it for years.

"Yes, this is the exact place where I vibed he would be. Or at least where he _was_. He probably knew that we're coming and then just took off."

Barry shook his head. "No. He wouldn't back down like that," he said.

The rest of them exchanged an awkward glance. It was still hard for them to see any version of Barry as broken and evil as Savitar was. Even still, it _was_ their friend, and he still thought the same way. That was what freaked them out the most.

As if right on cue, a strange voice rang out in the warehouse. "Well, if it isn't the whole gang," Killer Frost sauntered out in front of them.

Oliver drew his bow. "Where is Savitar?" he demanded in the voice of the Green Arrow.

"Oh please, there's no need for that," she laughed coldly (no pun intended). She prepared to shoot a wave of ice at the heroes but Supergirl shot off her heat-vision towards Killer Frost first. She hadn't seen it coming and was thrown into the back wall by the force of the laser-beam.

"I heard you don't like the heat!" Kara taunted.

Before Killer Frost could respond, Savitar sped into the warehouse in front of them. "I wouldn't waste your strength on her," the armored speedster landed a hard punch on Kara's face and sent her sliding backwards. "You still have me to deal with."

Kara scrambled to her feet just as Killer Frost had managed to stand up and walk beside Savitar. Oliver still had his bow trained on her as he shouted out some demands, "Kara and Barry, you take Savitar! The rest of us take Frost."

The team nodded and the fight began. Due to Kara's heat vision, Killer Frost had trouble making ice daggers, and Alex took this as an opportunity to attack. The two women were striking and dodging until Alex took a blow to the stomach from a chunk of ice Frost had conveniently been able to create at the last minute and thrown at her. Cisco ran to make sure she was okay, leaving only Oliver alone against the icy meta.

He shot an arrow in her direction, and as he expected, she caught it.

She laughed again and twirled the arrow in her hand. "Savitar taught me more than just to accept the Killer inside…" Unfortunately for her, the arrow exploded in her face and she screamed as the fire dampened her cold powers yet again.

"He didn't teach you everything, obviously," Oliver said.

Meanwhile, Barry and Savitar were running all over the room in blue and yellow lightning. From Kara's perspective, it was hard to tell whether Barry was chasing Savitar or vice versa. She grunted in annoyance. They seemed to be running around aimlessly and she couldn't get a good shot at Savitar.

"Barry!" she yelled. She didn't want to give away that she needed a clear shot, but she also needed the speedster's attention.

Barry led Savitar back to where Kara stood, but the evil speedster grabbed him by the neck. He dangled from Savitar's grip and choked out, "Now Supergirl—!"

Kara unleashed her heat-vision once again, and instantly the god of Speed dropped Barry to the ground and was immobilized. After another 30 seconds, the blue in Savitar's armor faded and the suit slumped over. Supergirl reigned in her heat vision as she and Barry waited for the time remnant to appear out of the suit. The two looked at each other; for a moment they thought they'd knocked him out. But, in an instant, orange lightning phased out of the suit and punched Barry. The two began to fight again, and this time Kara could barely tell them apart other than the time remnant's lightning was slightly darker than Barry's.

Killer Frost was incapacitated for a moment and saw that the suit had been powered down. When Oliver, Alex, and Cisco were distracted by the fight between the two "Barry"s, she made her escape in a cold mist.

Cisco turned back to where his former friend had sat a moment before and cursed to himself. He would save Caitlin, it just wouldn't be today apparently.

After hearing a loud crash Vibe turned around again to see Savitar out cold on the ground after being punched by Supergirl. He wanted to gloat, but they had to get the evil speedster back to the pipeline before he could escape.

Wally was back at the cortex with H.R. when the group of five returned. Judging from the triumphant look on most of their faces, he guessed they'd succeeded in apprehending Savitar.

He smiled. "That wasn't so hard, now was it?" Kid-Flash joked.

Everyone laughed except for Barry and Oliver. The two had been exchanging wary glances ever since they locked their enemy in the pipeline. They both shared the same thought without voicing it:

That was too easy.

"Oh come on Oliver, Barry, lighten up," Kara clapped her hands on their shoulders with a bit of kryptonian strength, causing the two men to wince. "Sorry," Kara mumbled.

"She's right though, guys. We just defeated Savitar. We won—" Cisco began but was cut off by Oliver.

"Cisco, I've fought my fair share of villains, and that was too easy. He definitely wanted to be captured. But why, we don't know," he said.

Alex looked to one of the monitors that had video on Savitar's cell. The time remnant of Barry was beginning to wake up. "Look. He's getting up. I suggest we ask questions and get some answers from him, or make him give answers."

Barry turned to Oliver again. Even if Savitar did mean to get captured, he was still in the pipeline which meant that he couldn't do much harm to them. At least, that's what Barry was hoping. Oliver gave a slow nod and the team headed down to the pipeline.

Savitar smirked when he heard the cell door open. His plan was going smoothly.

Oliver was the first to question the speedster. "Where is Chase keeping my son?" he growled.

"What about your other friends? Don't you want to know where they're being held too?" Savitar mocked. "That's just like you, Oliver. Always thinking about yourself and not for other people."

Oliver surged forward, only a few inches from the glass of the cell. "What did I ever do to you!? Just tell me where they are!"

Barry walked up next to him and put a hand on his shoulder to pull him back. He knew that Savitar was just taunting him like he'd taunted Barry.

"No more games, Savitar. Just tell us where you're keeping them and we—"

"You'll do what, Barry? I know for a fact you're keeping me in this cell whether I tell you or not," he sneered. "God, I hate you. I hate all of you. You all fool yourself into thinking you're heroes but you're not. You're the opposite; selfish, merciless. You will blame anybody else but yourselves for your mistakes."

"Enough. You'll tell us or I will make you tell us," Kara said. It was tough to see any version of Barry like this, but she couldn't let that get to her. He wasn't _their_ Barry, so she couldn't hesitate to do what was necessary.

Savitar tilted his head to the side. "You really think I'm afraid of you, Kara?"

"You should be," Alex spoke up.

The time remnant only laughed. "You think yourself a god, don't you, kryptonian? The thing is, gods don't have any weaknesses; no Achilles heel. After my ascension, I will have none. You will always have one; kryptonite. And it doesn't seem to come in short supply, does it?"

"What—what's _that_ supposed to mean?" Kara stuttered.

"Barry knows. Don't you, Barry? What you saw in the breach—"

Alex was the one to come inches away from the glass now. She was filled with too much rage to really understand what Savitar had been saying after he mentioned _kryptonite_. If that psycho ever so much as laid a finger on Kara with the substance… "You shut up, right now!"

"You're so eager to protect her. But what if one day she decides she doesn't want you? Doesn't care about any of you, about protecting the multiverse? That is the day you will see things my way. The day when people will see the multiverse's so-called heroes and scream: ' _Injust_ —'"

"Stop stalling. I don't know who you think is going to break you out of here, but no one is going to save you. You better tell us where our friends are right now or so help me…" Oliver had enough of this game. Savitar wanted to be captured and obviously had a plan to escape, but it wouldn't happen. He wouldn't let the villain go.

Savitar hesitated before responding. As soon as he told them he'd have to get back to the island faster than he had earlier so he could get his plan ready. He hoped Killer Frost was on her way there already. "Lian Yu. That's where everyone is. You can hope to stop me, to stop Prometheus, but you never will," he directed his attention to Barry, "I will kill Iris no matter what you do."

"You're not getting out of that cell," Barry's voice wavered. After all he'd done, Iris needed to be okay. He wouldn't accept any other outcome.

"I don't need the suit to be faster than you, Barry." As soon as he said this, Savitar phased right through the glass of the putative impenetrable cell. He sped out of STAR Labs and was lost to the rest of the team.

They all stood there for a moment, speechless.

Cisco was most astonished by the fact that a speedster could be fast enough to actually phase through the cell. The name "Lian Yu" once again came back to haunt Oliver. He was stuck on how Prometheus had his friends and his son hostage on that God-forsaken island. Savitar's words about Kara were replaying over and over again in Alex's mind. Barry had crouched to the ground and was on the brink of pulling out his hair in attempt to stop himself from screaming. What Kara was most focused on, though, was what Savitar said about Barry seeing something in a breach.

"Barry, what did he mean when he said you saw something in the breach? Something about kryptonite…?" she asked.

Barry sighed. He'd wanted to keep this a secret from all of them to start, but now he saw that it was no good. The best way to prevent Kara's death was to tell them all the truth at the expense of them not trusting him.

"When I cross over into different dimensions, I see glimpses of things. Glimpses of the past, present future, other timelines, other earths. One of the things I saw when I came to your earth was a vision of Savitar and Kara…" he paused. It was hard for him to relive the vision again, "I saw Savitar kill Kara with a shard of kryptonite."

" _What_?" Alex exclaimed. "You didn't think this was important information to share before you brought us here? It's Kara's _life_ , Barry!"

"I know. Which is why you should go back to Earth-38. I'm not going to let Savitar take anyone else away from us. Not when I can prevent it," Barry said.

"No," Kara interjected. "I agreed to come here and help you, and that's what I'm going to do. If I die trying? It's just a part of the job."

"Kara—" Alex began.

"No, Alex. He'd do it for me. He already has." She walked over to the speedster put a comforting hand on his shoulder. She then pulled him into a hug. "I'm with you, Barry."

"Thank you, Kara."

The small team had been physically and emotionally drained, but this small gesture seemed to lighten the mood a little bit more.

"This is a really touching moment but uh, sounds like we have to get going. That is, if we even believe Savitar…" Cisco cut in.

"He was telling the truth," Oliver said. "It's exactly where Chase would take them. And that's where we need to go."

"Purgatory?" Barry asked.

"Purgatory," Oliver confirmed. "It's not going to be easy though—"

"No," Cisco agreed. "Sooo...we may need even more help…"

"Oliver's two steps ahead of you, _Vibe_ ," said a voice from the shadows behind them in the hallway. The silhouette walked closer to reveal its identity as Malcolm Merlyn.

Barry leaned over to Oliver. "That _is_ the only way he knows how to make an entrance, isn't it?" he mumbled. A smile tugged at Oliver's lips in response.

Cisco looked on in disgust. "You called _him_? Isn't he still a, you know, a supervillain!?"

Kara whispered to Barry, "Oh so _that's_ the real Merlyn." He nodded. She had seen another version of him when they were whammied by the Music Meister, but she'd never had the "pleasure" of meeting the so-called former head of the League of Assassins in person. She really didn't understand any of the man's story Barry had told her, but she got bits and pieces.

"Thea is my daughter, and whether she wants me to or not, I will always protect her. From the looks of things, you're going to need all the help you can get."

"Which is why I didn't only call Malcolm…" Oliver trailed off as he heard more footsteps coming down the hallway. Right on cue, Nyssa al Ghul entered the room.

"Hello, Oliver, Flash," she nodded at the two heroes. She glanced at Kara and Alex. "I'm afraid we haven't met. I am Nyssa al Ghul, daughter of the demon and destroyer of the League of Assassins."

Kara and Alex were speechless for a moment. The two found this archer's name similar to that of kryptonians, but from what Barry had told them once, al Ghul was the name of a long line of assassins. Kara stood up taller and tried her best to look intimidating. "My name is, um, Kara Zor-El of Krypton, and this is my sister, Alex of Earth-39…?"

"38," Barry corrected.

"Of Earth-38! 38. That's what I meant!"

Nyssa simply raised an eyebrow in response. She knew better than to ask questions about these peculiar strangers. She turned her head slightly towards Malcolm and gave a small smirk.

"Malcolm," she acknowledged the Dark Archer. He scoffed as a reply.

"Well, I can't carry all of you to Lian Yu, so I guess I'll meet you there," Barry said as he pulled his cowl back over his head.

"Hey, be careful alright? We need you, Scarlet Speedster," Kara said this as she hugged him again. As he hugged her, he locked eyes with Oliver. Barry wasn't sure what was going to go down, but he knew he would do whatever it took to get the kryptonite away from Savitar and help Team Arrow. If it came to it, he would buy them enough time to arrive and set whatever plan they had in motion.

Oliver could tell Barry was making his own plan in his head, but he wouldn't let him do anything stupid just to help him and his son. He tried to communicate this, but Barry disappeared in a flash of yellow lightning before he could.

Alex spoke up after a long pause. "Okay, it's up to us now. We need to make a plan somehow to make this work," she said.

"But how are we supposed to lock either Savitar or Prometheus up? Savitar literally _can't_ be locked up, and I bet Prometheus has a lot more friends other than just speedsters," Kara said.

"Well, I have an idea for Savitar. We use the speed bazooka," Cisco said.

"And I can handle Prometheus. All I need to do is prove him wrong, and he'll give up," Oliver added.

"It's going to be a lot harder than that, Oliver," Malcolm said. "Some of us might not make it through this in one piece. Are you all prepared for that?"

Everyone in the room exchanged nervous glances. But, they all decided that they needed to do this. It was going to be one of the toughest things they'd ever done as a team, but they had to. No one they cared about was going to be taken from them. Not if this team had something to say about it.

* * *

 **Thanks for reading! Please review and let me know what you think! Also, get ready for chapter 4 because it's going to be super intense...**


	4. Die a Hero or Become the Villain

**Sorry for the long wait... This chapter was really hard to write, but it's extra long so I hope that makes up for the wait! The chapter title is indeed based off of the quote from Dark Knight, and that quote plays an important role in this chapter. Also, I have no idea how long it would take for Barry or Kara to fly/run to Lian Yu in one day, so I just gave a guestimate. It's probably not right but...oh well.**

 **This chapter follows closely to the plot of Arrow 5x23 and Flash 3x23. Please enjoy! -LowTide1322**

 **( Disclaimer)**

* * *

Chapter 4: Die a Hero or Become the Villain

 _ **ARGUS Facility**_

Iris spun her phone around in her hand for probably the hundredth time that morning. It was the end of the day on May 22nd, and she was fated to die at the hands of Savitar tomorrow. She wished so badly that Barry could just stop being the Flash and spend whatever hours she had left with her, but she knew that couldn't be. Savitar was still on the loose and now he was working with Prometheus, and that was a catastrophe that went beyond just Team Flash.

Even still, she just wanted to be with her fiancé.

The ARGUS Facility was by no means comfortable, but Iris was safe. Savitar could try to get in and even if he did, he wouldn't be able to dodge the bullets that would come his way so easily anymore.

After another few minutes of spinning her phone now on the table in front of her, Wally and her dad entered through the front door. She stood up, thankful for the company but also thankful for something to distract her from her thoughts other than trying to spin her phone again. Man, she _really_ needed one of those fidget spinner things, she thought to herself. She made a mental note that if somehow everything was okay in the end that she would go buy one to see what all the hype was about.

"Wally, Dad," she said as she hugged the two of them. "Please tell me you're here to stay."

"Actually, yeah. The rest of the team went to Lian Yu this morning—" Wally began.

"Sorry, Lee-what?"

Wally and Joe told her about how the group of five had taken Savitar back to STAR Labs and locked him in the pipeline. He'd escaped, but not before telling the team that their friends were being held hostage on the island Oliver spent the better part of five years stranded on.

"And, um...he also said that he was going to get to you, no matter what." Wally added quietly. Iris felt fear begin to flutter around in her chest. She only had one day. And it turned out not even the pipeline could contain the evil speedster, so what if he had access to his speed even in the ARGUS Facility?

"But Barry is going to stop him," Wally quickly continued after noticing how frightened Iris looked. "He left for Lian Yu before everyone else to scout ahead—"

"He's by himself on that God-forsaken island? Why would Kara let him do that? Or Oliver—especially Oliver!?" Now, she was not only fearful for her own life, but feared for Barry's too. "I need some—I need to go to the bathroom," she said as she stormed towards the exit of the room. She was going to say that she needed some air, but remembered with a bitter thought that she wasn't _allowed_ to step foot outside. She wasn't allowed to go outside while Barry was risking his life miles and miles away. If she lost him…

She walked faster out of the room before any tears could fall. No, she thought. She wouldn't give up. Barry wouldn't give up, and they would get to have their wedding, start a family, and have a whole life together. She wouldn't let go of hope.

Wally sighed watching Iris storm out as he plopped down in one of the chairs. Joe sat in one across from him.

"Wally…"

"I should be helping them. I should help Barry take out Savitar...he can't do this alone," Wally said.

"No. You're job isn't out there; it's to be here for your sister and protect her. Barry and the others know what they're up against and they can handle it."

"I don't think they can, Dad. That's the problem. What if something happens out there and I could have been able to help—?"

"You're not ready, Wally," Joe stated firmly. "Prometheus? Savitar? They will _kill_ you without a second thought, and I'm not about to let that happen."

"But you think Barry is up for this? Don't you worry about him? What about Cisco or Kara and Oliver? They can just risk their lives because they don't mean as much to you?" Wally stood up from his chair angrily. "I'm only here for Iris. If she weren't in danger, you'd be damn sure I'd run over there to fight with them right now." He turned around and walked out the same exit Iris had a few minutes earlier.

Joe sighed and rubbed his eyes. He didn't want to tell Wally how afraid he already was now that Barry had some mission to go to an island on the other side of the world. He wished he could be there too with all of them to make sure it was safe, but Iris and Wally had to be his priority right now. The others could hold their own well enough without him because they had the experience. The two Wests didn't have nearly as much know-how when it came to taking down murderous psychopaths or evil metahumans.

Hours passed and eventually the three found themselves in the same room once again. Wally at first wouldn't make eye contact with Joe, but after awhile they were able to talk to each other without getting into an argument about Lian Yu. They all refused to go to sleep so that they could spend as much time together as possible. If Savitar found a way to get into the facility, this could be their last moments together as a family.

Iris had dried her tears long ago and now started to laugh as she and her father kept bringing up stories of when she was little to Wally. The youngest West blushed with second-hand embarrassment when his sister talked about how she and Barry switched rooms so that she could sneak out past curfew through a window in one of the rooms.

"You told me it was because Barry didn't like the noise from the street," Joe said.

Iris laughed again. "Yeah, no, that was a lie. But in my defense, my curfew was 8:00."

Joe scratched the back of his head. "Okay, I guess I was a _little_ bit strict—"

"A little?" Iris exclaimed.

The small family smiled together. It seemed like they'd almost forgotten all about Savitar; he was simply a nightmare that only existed in the back of their minds. That being said, the speedster wasn't _completely_ forgotten. The fear that he would come barging in through the door still lingered. Wally checked his watch to see how much time had passed since they'd started talking, but he couldn't believe his eyes.

It was May 23rd, and Iris was still alive.

"Guys…" Wally showed them both his watch. Iris brought her hands to her face in excitement and practically jumped into her dad's arms.

"Barry did it? Savitar is gone?" Joe rejoiced.

Wally nodded. "At this time in that other timeline, Iris was on Infantino Street with Savitar and Barry. I don't know for sure, but I think this means…"

"...the future's ours again?" Iris said quietly. She didn't want to raise her hopes only to have them crushed if all of their theories proved to be false.

Before Wally could respond, the alarms in the facility began to blare. At the same time, he felt the speed force course through him once again. Curious, Wally tried to vibrate his hand to see if his speed was intact, and consequently phased his hand through the table in front of him. If he had his speed back, then that meant that Savitar…

"He can get in," Iris voiced what they all were thinking.

Joe pulled up the security feed on a tablet Lyla had given them before they entered. What they all saw was unexpected, but at the moment relieving.

A breach had opened up in one of ARGUS's most advanced prison cells, and from it came Oliver dragging Prometheus, or Adrian Chase, by the hood. He tossed him into the cell, not at all gently, and hopped back into the breach. The breach closed and Prometheus was left struggling to stand up from the floor of the cell.

"I guess this means Oliver finally took down Chase," Joe said.

"And Cisco found out how to make breaches in the ARGUS facility?" Wally also noted. As soon as he said this, another breach opened up in front of them in the room. Oliver walked out, bruised all over and suit torn. His mask and hood were removed from his face and his quiver was empty. His bow hung loosely from his grip and he dragged his feet towards them.

"Are you alright?" he asked, his voice very hoarse.

"Yeah, why wouldn't we be? What-what happened, Oliver?" Wally asked. The fact that Oliver refused to meet any of their eyes turned their newfound joy quickly to anxiety.

After a pause that felt like an eternity for the Wests, Oliver spoke. "I'm...I'm sorry—"

The breach behind Oliver sparked to life again, and from it walked a sight that caused the family to gasp simultaneously.

"No…" Iris said barely above a whisper.

* * *

 _ **1 day earlier**_

 _ **Lian Yu**_

Barry skidded to a stop once he reached the shores of Lian Yu. He'd never run across an ocean before, and it was the most tiring thing he'd ever done. Thankfully, he'd been able to snatch one of those protein bars Cisco kept at STAR Labs so he could replenish his strength; God knew he'd need it.

After he took a small breather, he ran around the perimeter of the island to see if there were any planes or boats that Chase could have taken everyone on. If he found the plane, then they couldn't have been imprisoned too far away.

Halfway around the island, Barry noticed movement and heard faint voices a bit further into the forest. He slowed down and walked towards the noise and saw what looked like cages. As he drew closer, he recognized the voices of Felicity, Thea, and Curtis. Almost instantly, they spotted him in the brush.

"Barry!" Thea exclaimed.

"It's a trap! Savitar and Prometheus want you and Oliver to come here; they planned for you to capture Savitar—" Felicity began. All they knew was what they'd observed Savitar and Chase discussing when they'd arrived on the island.

"Felicity, I know. Savitar broke out of the pipeline. Where are the others? Where is William?"

At this, a woman who Barry could have sworn he'd seen before perked up and rushed to the front of her cage. "You know about William? You know my son?"

"Yes, well, not personally. But I'm Oliver's friend, and he and the rest are coming here soon after me. I'm just scouting ahead and telling them all what to expect—" Barry replied.

"Wait, you guys knew this was a trap but you came here anyway? Why would you do something stupid like that!?" Felicity argued. She really hoped that their team wouldn't be ten steps behind once again and result in a loss. She didn't know what she'd do if it came to that.

"Look, we don't have much time and I need to get you all out of here—"

"You're right, _Flash_ , you won't have enough time to stop all of this and Savitar. So, why don't you quit while you're _behind_?" Killer Frost made yet another "grand" entrance, but only Curtis and Samantha showed any kind of fear towards the metahuman at all.

Felicity and Thea rolled their eyes. "Wow, what a line," Thea mumbled and Felicity smirked.

Killer Frost's hands were balled into fists and seemed to be steaming except not with heat, but with cold. She created an icicle and threw one at Felicity's cage. Luckily, Barry caught the projectile in time before it reached her.

"Cait, you don't want to do this—" Barry began but was cut off when he felt searing pain in his leg. He grunted and looked down to see it frozen in a case of ice. He tried to phase out of it, but it was just too cold.

"Adrian Chase warned us that you might arrive," another woman clad in a black outfit that resembled an uniform from the League of Assassins, Talia, walked into the small clearing next to Killer Frost. Evelyn Sharp appeared behind them.

Too fast for any of the three women to really see what he was doing, Barry pulled a tracker from the boot of his free leg and put it on Felicity's cage. The spark of lightning he created with this movement caused Talia to draw back her bow and fire an arrow into Barry's shoulder. He cried out in a moment of brief pain, but surprisingly his shoulder didn't hurt as much as he thought it would. He carefully pulled the arrow out but immediately felt dizzy and black spots dotted his vision.

"Barry! Are you okay?" he faintly heard Felicity yelp. He struggled sit up but his vision blurred even more.

"What-what did you do?" Barry stammered. He could feel himself losing consciousness.

Evelyn smirked. "A sedative that could put even _you_ down. We can't have you running back to Oliver and the others so soon."

Barry struggled to stay awake but his eyelids were already drooping shut. The last thing he remembered was Caitlin's face in front of his own, and she said, "Sweet dreams, Flash."

The speedster woke up again and took in his surroundings. He could tell that there were other people in the room, but his vision was too fuzzy to identify who they were.

"Guys, I think he's getting up," said a voice. Barry's vision cleared to see Dig standing over him and he blinked a few times as he took in his surroundings. He felt something constricting around his wrists and attempted to phase through whatever confined him, but it wasn't working. The cuffs were very similar to those that Eobard Thawne had used on him when he'd traveled back in time to learn the speed equation.

After a few moments of struggling, Barry sat up. "Hey, Dig. You guys okay?"

"I feel like we should be asking you that. We've been chained up here all day with no sign of the others," Diggle replied and tugged on the shackles that kept him from walking over to where Bary sat.

"I saw them. They're on another part of the island. I tried to get them out, but Caitlin and a couple others stopped me. Luckily, before I was captured I stuck a tracking device Oliver gave me in Felicity's cage so that when he gets here, he'll know where they are. Any sign of William?" Barry asked.

"No," Lance replied. "He wasn't with the others?"

Barry shook his head in response. He refused to believe the worst, but he couldn't completely get the thought out of his head. Rather than dwelling on th e possibility that Prometheus had killed Oliver's son, Barry explained his plan as best he could to everyone. Parts of the plan were unknown to him because the less he knew, the less Savitar knew.

"Oliver should be here soon with Kara and Cisco. Or at least, he'll find Thea, Curtis, Felicity and William's mother."

"But now, he won't know where _we_ are," Rene grumbled.

"He'll find us," Barry assured, "and we'll end this."

* * *

Kara flew over the island she'd been told was Lian Yu. She used her x-ray vision and noticed that there were many, _many_ more people on this island than there ought to be. She focused her attention in on where Barry's tracker signal came from and found a few human life forms there. Kara prepared to dive towards the ground when she felt something sting her shoulder. She glanced to her right and saw a small, glowing green dart jutting out from her arm. Almost immediately, she felt unbalanced and started to lose control over her flight. Kryptonite, she thought. For a moment, the kryptonian was reminded of the time the DEO had surprised her with a kryptonite tranq dart as she began her heroics as Supergirl. Wow, how time flew.

Unfortunately, she wasn't flying anymore, rather, she was falling.

Kara landed on Lian Yu not at all gently, leaving a small crater in her wake. She reached over to her right and attempted to pull out the dart, but her fingers stung and couldn't help but yelp in pain as she carefully removed the kryptonite.

Finally, with a gasp, Kara extracted the dart from her shoulder and threw it into the brush.

She shook her hand repeatedly, attempting to stop it from stinging so much. With the kryptonite gone, she could already feel her strength returning to her, but it wasn't all there yet. With a groan Kara stood up and began to take in her surroundings.

To her great surprise someone smacked her on the back of her head, _hard_. Without her powers, Supergirl could barely stay conscious as a result of the blow and dropped to her knees. With blurry vision she only just avoided another strike by throwing herself out of the way.

"Wow," said a man clad in what looked like a black version of Oliver's suit. He had a hood, but it wasn't over his face. She noticed that while his features looked unintimidating, there was a darkness in his eyes that chilled her to the bone. "You're an interesting one, aren't you?"

"Who—are you?" Kara struggled to say. Her vision swam and she wasn't sure how much longer she could stay conscious.

"Doesn't matter. You're looking for Oliver's friends, right? I'll take you to them," he said as he was about to land one more devastating blow on Supergirl, but stopped mid-strike. It seemed he was getting a message through his comms.

" _Prometheus_ ," Adrian Chase heard Savitar's voice through the comms. " _Green Arrow and friends just arrived on the island. You're needed at the monastery_."

" _And you're up. I just had to deal with the alien real fast. She shouldn't be an issue for awhile. Thanks for the dart, by the way, it came in handy_ ," he added with a chuckle. Without looking back down at the Girl of Steel, he punched her in the face and she fell to the ground again, out cold. Chase noticed with a grimace that hitting her hurt his hand more than it should have, taking into account that the alien must have been regaining her strength. " _I'm on my way._ "

As Prometheus sprinted from one end of Lian Yu to the center, Oliver, Nyssa, Malcolm, Alex and Cisco jumped out of a breach one by one near the entrance of the ARGUS prison. With a grunt, Cisco set down the speed bazooka.

"Man that thing is _heavy_!" he said. He walked up next to Oliver to examine the prison entrance. "Oh, so this is your prison you compared the pipeline to, huh? I still think ours is cooler."

Oliver gave a small smile in response. He turned to the rest of the group. "I have to go get someone else who could help us. I'll only be a few minutes."

Alex was thoroughly confused. He was breaking someone out of a prison? Not to mention the fact that it was on a deserted island which meant the baddest of the bad were being kept here. There wouldn't be a situation (other than with the whole Non and Astra fiasco) that would force her to release a prisoner from the DEO, let alone work with one, so she had a hard time believing that Oliver's plan was the right move.

Cisco seemed to notice her discomfort with the situation. "I know this whole thing doesn't really make much sense—"

"No, it doesn't make _any_ sense."

"—but Oliver is making the right choice here. Sometimes, I guess, it's your worst enemies who turn out to be your strongest allies in the end," Cisco theorized. He looked up at Alex and could tell she looked confused. He threw on an awkward grin and added, "I don't know if that helps explain the reasoning behind the plan...it probably doesn't—"

Vibe didn't get to finish his sentence because walking up from the bunker came Oliver and Slade Wilson, a.k.a., Deathstroke. In spite of what Cisco was trying to convey a moment before, he yelped and jumped behind Alex at the sight of the old villain. No one could see it under his mask, but Slade rolled his eyes at this.

"Great, now that we've let the animal out of its cage…" Nyssa began.

"We find the location of Barry's tracking device. It hasn't moved in the past couple of hours, so I'm assuming he's left it behind and gone somewhere else. I sent Supergirl on ahead to scope the island from above," Oliver said and then tapped into the comms, " _Supergirl, what's your status?_ " The only response was static from the other line. Oliver cast a worried glance at Cisco and Alex and tried again.

" _Supergirl, do you copy?_ " A pause. Nothing.

Even still, Alex refused to believe the worst. "Prometheus must be blocking the comms system. Why else would there be static?"

"Alex—" Cisco began, but she had already stormed off with a tablet in hand, following the ping that was coming from Barry's tracking device.

Without pressing the matter further, the team followed her and soon was surrounded by the woods.

"It's just like old times, isn't it kid?" Slade said to Oliver as they walked. The archer didn't respond. "So, you marry Ra's al Ghul's daughter and not the blonde? I guess a lot's changed for you hasn't it?"

Oliver sighed. "Nyssa talks too much. It's a very long story and I'm sure she left out most of the important details."

"And an alien? Is that another long story?"

Before Oliver could make an exasperated response, Alex stopped the group.

"Oliver," she called out behind her and the archer walked up next to her immediately. She gestured to the tablet and showed him the concerning data.

"Satellite view shows maybe three or four heat signatures just straight ahead. I just wanted to let you know before we head off in that direction so we're aware that something unexpected might come our way. You said Prometheus has been planning this for months? We could be walking right into a trap," Alex said.

Oliver nodded. "I know. But I'm prepared for Chase. I know what he wants me to do, but I won't do it. He thinks I will, but I won't; ever. If that comes to the cost of my own life, so be it. As long as my friends and family are safe…"

Alex gave him a look of understanding. She'd do anything for her own family; she had already. Just from hearing Oliver say this, she felt a newfound respect for the man. She shared many values as him, and other than Kara or Hank really, she didn't have anyone at the DEO who had this much in common with her.

The group pressed on, this time following Oliver. In a few minutes, they happened upon four cages that held Thea, Felicity, Curtis and Samantha.

Felicity perked up when she heard footsteps approaching them. To say she was relieved to see Oliver would be an enormous understatement. "Oliver thank God—" but her eyes fell to the man standing next to him, "What-what the _hell_ is he doing here?"

Slade gave a small smile under his mask. "I see you haven't lost your spunk, Ms. Smoak."

Thea was disgusted, to say the least, to see her mother's murderer standing before her. She didn't yet know Slade was in possession of all his "marbles" and a very guilty conscience. "Ollie, what is going on? He killed mom—"

"I'm going to get you all out of here. Where's Barry?" he cut her off. He didn't feel like explaining the whole situation to everyone else right then.

"He...he was captured by Talia and Killer Frost. I'm assuming they took him to where Dig and the others are. It wasn't until a couple minutes after they left that I realized he put his tracker in my cage. They've been gone long enough that they could have come back already. It could be a trap!" Felicity told Oliver in a panic.

He simply shook his head. "No. Even if they are here, they'd know they're outnumbered. Let's just get you out of here…" He and the others began to unlock the cages. A small worry began to form in the back of his mind when Felicity said Barry had been captured. It was one thing for the speedster to try to take down his own villains, but Prometheus was ruthless. If he knew that the Green Arrow and the Flash were friends, Chase would use the opportunity to make Oliver suffer even more.

"Wait, if they have Barry then…" Cisco said quietly to Oliver while they unlocked Samantha's cage.

He pushed the worry further in the back of his mind. Barry could handle himself. "He knows what he's doing," he stated simply. He turned his attention to Samantha. "Is William here?"

"I don't know, we got separated. Oliver what is going on here?" she replied.

"I'll explain later...right now we need to find where the others are—"

Nyssa crouched in front of an opening in the trees. "I can track them, but we have to hurry. I'm not sure how long the trail will remain visible. Talia also must know we would try to follow her, and she could be very good at covering her tracks."

"Okay. Cisco, make a breach and take all of them home. Report back when they are all safe," Oliver ordered.

Cisco reached his hand out to start forming a breach, but only blue vibration waves appeared rather than the breach itself. He looked at his hands in confusion and then tried again, but the same thing happened.

"What the…" he trailed off.

"Come on, Cisco, we couldn't make it _that_ easy for you." Savitar suddenly appeared in the clearing, but he was without his armor. He held up a small device in his hand. If Barry were there, he'd recognize it as the same device that Cisco of 2024 had designed to keep him from time traveling. Alas, he wasn't present to make this connection, so present Cisco and the rest had no idea what it was. "To make a long story short, you won't be making breaches for quite awhile."

"I can still kick your ass though," Cisco sneered. He fired out a pulse at the evil speedster, but he easily dodged it.

"Better find another way off the island," he said. Cisco lifted the speed bazooka the team had been lugging around and aimed it at him. But, with a small smirk, Savitar ran off in a flash of lightning before Cisco could shoot.

Oliver only took a couple moments to let what had just happened sink in. They'd had a set plan to make sure everyone could get home safely, and it was ruined. For once, just _once_ , Oliver could be a step ahead of Chase. The breaches were his best bet of saving his family and now they were actually stuck.

As Oliver's thoughts moved a thousand miles a minute, he came up with a back-up plan. Of course it would take so much longer than using Cisco's powers, but it was better than the alternative.

"There's an ARGUS supply ship on the east coast of island, Malcolm can navigate it—"

"But what about you guys? If Cisco can't make any breaches…" Felicity trailed off, not following Oliver's logic.

"Once we take down Chase and Savitar, we can destroy whatever device is blocking Cisco's powers. Even if that doesn't work, the plane that Chase flew in must still be here," he realized after a pause. "Just go. Adrian will either guess that you'll be going to the ship or the plane, let's just hope he thinks you're going to the plane first."

Thea wanted to protest, to tell Oliver that his idea was insane, but they already were short on time. If Oliver was going to defeat Prometheus, he needed the least amount of distractions possible.

The two groups split up, and soon enough Oliver, Nyssa, Slade, Alex and Cisco discovered a small building in the distance. Nyssa had been able to track Talia all the way from the cages, and the trail lead them to this part of the island that neither Slade nor Oliver had really explored in depth before.

Cisco kept grumbling to the whole way to the building, or monastery as Nyssa had identified, about Savitar and his "stupid future tech". Oliver also could make out other odd phrases such as "couldn't figure out artificial intelligence" and "make a flash ring". The archer opted to roll his eyes rather than question the young engineer about his...interesting frustrations.

"How you doing, kid?" Slade's voice made Oliver jump slightly. Even though bringing him along was his idea, he still went into fight-or-flight mode whenever he saw or heard the voice of Deathstroke.

Oliver refused to look at him. "I'm fine—"

"That's a lie. This Prometheus threatens to take a lot from you from the sound of it; maybe more than I took from you. And you won't kill him either?"

"I was a monster; Chase taught me that. He wants to prove to me that because of that, everything I touch is destroyed or dies. I keep hoping that if I prove him wrong and don't kill him, he'll lose; give up. I just don't know how strong I can be if he takes away people I care about for good."

"You underestimate your own strength, Oliver. I can tell you've changed since I last saw you; you've grown. Your wisdom is how you can beat him without taking the easy route."

Oliver still didn't look at him, but he smiled to himself. If he could forget the past eight or nine years they had been enemies, he would have felt as though Slade could be his friend and mentor from all those years before.

Nyssa halted the group since they were only a few yards away from the entrance to the monastery. Alex set down, nearly dropped, the speed bazooka and earned a glare from Cisco.

She rolled her eyes. "You're the one who suggested we switch off who has to drag the weapon around since _you_ didn't want to carry it the whole way!"

Cisco opened his mouth to retort but couldn't find anything to counter her previous statement. Alex smirked and then listened in on the game plan that Oliver and the other two were drawing up.

Nyssa and Alex were to take on Talia while Slade was to somehow get Oliver and Cisco into the prison where the rest were being held. They needed to get a sonic device Curtis had made for Dinah a few days ago to them so that the Black Canary in-training could help break them all out. Cisco even believed that with her sonic scream she could also destroy whatever device Savitar used to block his breach-creating powers.

With the plan made, the team marched into the monastery and set it all in motion.

* * *

Kara's eyes fluttered open and suddenly felt as if she were waking from a good night's sleep. She rubbed the back of her head and noticed that she was in the same clearing that she had crash landed in and met the archer clad in black. She also noticed that she was at full strength now.

Supergirl shot off into the air and used her x-ray vision to once again try to figure out where Barry and the rest were. She assumed she'd been out for an hour or two, so Oliver must have found Barry's tracker by now.

She scanned the island again and found something strange. There was a small boat docked at one end of the island with one small human life form inside it. Kara decided to check it out as she dove down and landed on the boat. She cautiously walked towards the door and opened it to find a young boy cowering in the corner of the cabin. His hands were cuffed to a bolted down desk.

"Help—help me please help me!" he whimpered.

Kara immediately rushed forward and broke the cuffs. She had to assume that this young boy was William, Oliver's son. She smiled to herself softly as the boy had many of the same features as her friend.

"Don't worry, I'm going to get you out of here," she reassured him in hopes of getting him to calm down. "Are you hurt?"

William shook his head. "What's going on? Where is my mom?"

Kara tried to find the right thing to say to make William less scared, but she couldn't. She could only be brutally honest. "I don't know. But your father, Oliver Queen, is out there right now trying to find her, okay? But you're safe now, you have nothing to worry about."

"Who-who are you?"

Kara smiled. "I'm Supergirl. You can trust me. I'm friends with the Green Arrow and the Flash."

"Green Arrow and the Flash..?" William repeated. He softened a bit at the mention of the names, so Kara could tell he at least trusted the two heroes.

"Yeah, we're all close friends. Listen, I'm going to take you home, okay? And then I'm coming back to find your mom and fight the man who captured you. You'll be safe—"

"I don't want to leave without my mom," William declared.

Kara had to praise the kid for his bravery. There was definitely no denying now that this was Oliver's son. "I know. But your father needs you to be out of harm's way, and the only way that can happen is if I get you away from here. Your mom will be okay and she'll come home to you, I promise."

Supergirl extended her hand out towards the boy, and William stared at it. He looked back at Kara and she nodded slightly. She wanted him to know she could get him to safety and that he had no reason to be afraid of her. She could tell the kid had been through a traumatic experience, and unfortunately she could completely relate. But, Kara refused to let William lose his entire family like she had. Not if she could prevent it.

William hesitantly took her hand and she led him out of the boat cabin. "Now, I'm going to fly you to somewhere safe, alright? Let me know at any time if you feel sick or uncomfortable and we can take a break."

The boy nodded and Supergirl picked him up off of the boat and flew him all the way to STAR Labs in Central City. At her fastest speed while carrying someone, the trip took only around half an hour.

William got settled in with H.R. and Tracy, and they all seemed to be getting along nicely as H.R. promised to take the boy to Jitters for some hot chocolate, his favorite.

Before Supergirl took off for Lian Yu once again, a man stopped her. She couldn't remember his name for a split second, but then it came back to her; this was Julian Albert.

"Once you get back, give this to Caitlin," he said as he held up a vial of blue liquid. Kara took it gently in her hand.

"Is this…?"

"The cure to get rid of Killer Frost, yes. I just finished it, so thank God you came back when you did. Is the plan working? Has Savitar been defeated?"

Kara grimaced. Underratedly, she hadn't really done much except get knocked out and rescue William. She had no idea where the others were and how they were doing. "I honestly have no idea. They have kryptonite, so I was knocked out. Luckily I found William as soon as I woke up. I-I don't know if they're all okay…" she trailed off. She really hoped nothing bad happened to her friends or especially to Alex. Speaking of which, they must have been worried sick and wondering what had happened to the Girl of Steel. Kara could tell Prometheus blocked the comms system as soon as she was shot down by the kryptonite dart. "Thank you, Julian. I'll get this to Cisco; he'll know what to do."

And with that, she took off with a blast of air and flew the fastest she ever had back to the island where the battle was brewing.

* * *

Alex and Nyssa stormed through the halls of the monastery, searching for any sign of Talia and her followers. Nyssa was particularly curious of her new teammate from a parallel earth; specifically of the fact that she had an alien sister and was still not an alien somehow.

"Are you worried about your sister?" Nyssa finally struck up a conversation.

"Are you? From what I gather we're on a mission to take yours out," Alex grumbled. She didn't want the conversation to get personal at all with this stranger.

"She abandoned me. I have no ties to her at all—"

"Look, I'm not trying to strike up a deep, get-to-know-you conversation right now. I'm only here to help my sister's friends and then go home to try to figure out how to prevent another alien invasion!" Alex said, exasperated.

Nyssa shrugged off Alex's statement. It didn't matter, by the end of this mission she'd figure out her backstory; she made it her mission to know everything about everyone so that she could never be caught off guard or surprised in any situations. It was just one of those "habits" that came with being trained as an assassin since birth.

As the two turned the corner, they were surprised to find Talia waiting for them with all of her followers ready to fight.

"Hello, sister," she smirked at Nyssa.

The two assassins got into a heated conversation, one Alex didn't pay much attention to. She only was worried about what might happen if the sizeable group of other assassins decided to strike. Alex had training as an agent at the DEO, but this...this was different to say the least.

Eventually, Nyssa and Talia began to duel, and it seemed the fight was evenly matched. After many more hits, parries and blocks of all kinds, Nyssa disarmed her sister and was about to deliver the final blow, but hesitated. Much to Alex's dismay, the other assassins prepared to interfere. She inched backwards; no way could she be able to take down all of them. She prepared for the worst but suddenly Deathstroke jumped down and single-handedly took out each of the assassins. Alex exhaled in relief, and realized that Nyssa had only knocked out Talia rather than killing her.

"You're late," Nyssa said while at the same time expressing her gratitude.

"No, he's right on time," Alex said. "Come on, let's go meet up with the others."

While Nyssa and Alex had been looking for Talia, Oliver and Cisco had been thrown in the brig with the rest of the group. Everyone else they had been looking for was there; Diggle, Lance, Rene, Dinah, and Barry.

"Barry! You okay man?" Cisco did his best to give his friend a fist-bump while in shackles.

The speedster smiled. "Yeah, I'm good, we're all good. Aside from being stuck in here, obviously. I've been trying since I got here but I can't phase through these handcuffs. I hope you have a plan to get us all out of here…"

Oliver tossed the sonic device to Dinah. "Curtis worked this up for you. It's gonna control your Canary Cry, but it's also going to bypass the sonic dampener."

Dinah smiled wide. "I love that Curtis!" she said as she began to put the device around her neck. "This may hurt a bit…"

"Just sing, Canary," Rene encouraged his friend.

Dinah took in a deep breath and then let out a poignant scream that smashed all of the shackles and depowered the speed-dampening cuffs on Barry. The speedster phased out of them immediately and sped out of the brig and returned with Oliver's gear and Cisco's Vibe goggles.

The Flash then sped everyone to the main room in the monastery. Unfortunately, Prometheus, Black Siren, Killer Frost, Evelyn, and the rest of Talia's followers (curiously, minus Talia, Oliver noted) were already waiting for them.

"Hello, Oliver. Welcome back to purgatory," Chase said.

Oliver wasted no time getting down to business. "Where is my son?"

"William? Good name. Sort of a sweet kid, actually," he taunted and he and Black Siren exchanged a smirk, "you sure he's yours?"

"ADRIAN! WHERE IS MY SON!?" Oliver shouted. He was seriously _done_ playing games. It had been a very long day and he'd run out of patience.

"If you want to get your son back, you know what you have to do."

Oliver shook his head. "I'm not going to kill you. No matter what you do, that is never going to happen."

"Never say never," Adrian replied and rushed forwards at Oliver. The two began to fight and the others in the room started to run towards each other. There was the Vibe vs. Killer Frost showdown going on, and Black Canary vs. Black Siren. Dig, Rene, and Quentin were left to defeat the others and were seriously outnumbered. Luckily for them Slade, Nyssa and Alex showed up in the nick of time and the six of them fought together.

Barry ran all around the monastery looking for anywhere Chase could be keeping William but came up with nothing. He was headed back to the main battle to help out, but was slammed into the wall by a silver and blue figure. Savitar, he realized.

"My ascendency is very close now, Flash. No plan you have, not even the speed gun, can stop this; can stop me!" the Future Flash growled.

"You have my memories. You remember singing to Iris, asking her to marry you, loving her, and you still want to kill her!? This doesn't make any sense—!" Barry began, but was cut off by a speed force punch landed on his face.

"Well, it's like an old friend once told me, or a friend will tell you, 'you either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain'. You were too selfish to stop me, to do what was necessary to save Iris, Kara, and countless others. You weren't _enough_. So, you didn't stay the hero. _I_ became the villain because of _you_."

Barry yelled in frustration and the two versions of the Flash fought in a ball of gold and blue lightning. Eventually, Savitar threw Barry into the main room where Oliver and the others were. He slammed into the wall with a nasty _crack_ noise.

Oliver glanced over at the speedster and consequently was side-tracked from his fight with his fight with Prometheus. Chase took this opportunity to land a hard blow to the Green Arrow's stomach, knocking the wind out of him.

"Ah, it's the Flash. Nice of you to drop by. You're having a problem saving someone close to you too, aren't you? What was her name again?" Prometheus walked over to the Scarlet Speedster. "Iris! That's it. Don't you wonder where she is right now? Or hope she's safe?"

"Leave him out of this," Oliver grunted. He was still having trouble standing up. "Your fight is with me!"

Chase simply smirked back at Oliver and landed a hard kick in Barry's stomach. The Flash winced and started to cough.

Savitar turned to Chase. "Are you saying you know where they're hiding her?"

"You've helped me out, I'm just returning the favor," he said. "I've been asking around, and a friend of mine is a mole at the main ARGUS facility—"

"No...please…" Barry begged.

"—and he said that they just took in a girl running from an evil speedster. And I thought, well that sounds familiar. So I asked him what her name was and he said it was—you guessed it—Iris West. Now, there was that pesky problem of Savitar being able to run around in there, but I learned that not even some special device could stop a god..."

"Adrian—!" Oliver had just been able to stand up. This wasn't fair to Barry. Savitar shouldn't have been able to find Iris, and now because of Prometheus and his stupid vendetta, she would be in danger. Barry would never forgive him if the worst happened…

Chase handed Savitar another device, similar to the one he was using to dampen Cisco's powers. Savitar examined it for a moment, and then crushed it in his metal claw.

Barry slumped back onto the floor. It all made sense. Of course she would go to the place that no metahuman could get into. And now...now Savitar knew where she was and could find her to kill her. He failed.

"Not very smart of them making their facility metahuman-proof with a remote switch that can power it down," Chase laughed.

Oliver yelled and ran over to him and tackled him. The two began fighting again, and as did Barry and Savitar. All around the room, there was fighting, ice flying, sonic screams and flashes of lightning.

Cisco was facing off against Caitlin, and they once again crossed beam; Killer Frost shot off ice and Vibe shot of blue vibrations at the same time. Cisco ended up being only just stronger than her and sent her flying backwards. While she was incapacitated, he ran to pick up the speed force bazooka. He'd overheard Prometheus give up Iris's location, and the last hope they had to stop Savitar was to use the weapon. Just as he reached for it, it began to freeze, and then in an instant the gun shattered. In shock, Cisco turned around to see Killer Frost smirking.

"Oops," she said simply.

"No…" was all Cisco could mumble. Caitlin stood over her former friend and prepared to freeze him.

"Bye bye, Vibe," she said as she shot ice towards him.

Cisco closed his eyes, anticipating the cold, but none came. He opened one eye to see Supergirl standing in front of him, using her heat vision to fend off the frost. Caitlin was once again thrown backwards, and Kara helped Cisco stand.

"She-she destroyed the weapon—" he stuttered, but Kara cut him off.

"It's okay. We can still do this. Here," she slipped a vial into his hand. "This is the cure for Caitlin; to get rid of Killer Frost. I trust you'll know what to do with it." Before he could ask any questions, the Girl of Steel flew off to another fight in the room.

Cisco slowly walked over to where Caitlin lay. He held a hand out as a threat to her to not try to stand against him again. She sat up cautiously.

"Go ahead, Cisco. Go bad," she said.

Cisco put his arm down at his side. "No. I never will," he decided after a pause. "But I will give you a choice. You wanna be Caitlin again? Here's your chance." He tossed the vial down to her. She seemed to be contemplating something, and her blue eyes kept flashing into brown and then blue again. Finally, her eyes faded into a deep brown, and at once Cisco knew Caitlin was in control.

"Thank you, Cisco…"

Vibe smiled and helped his friend up and proceeded to hug her. Savitar saw what was going on, and was thoroughly disappointed to say the least. He thought that maybe, just maybe Caitlin would have it in her to be Killer Frost forever, but he guessed she just was too weak. Oh well, he thought, her loss.

The god of Speed continued to beat on Barry until he was thrown backwards by a force he knew all too well.

"Supergirl," he sneered as she helped Barry stand up.

"Thought you could get rid of me?" Kara taunted.

Alex finished taking down another assassin, she looked up to see her sister, alive and well. She smiled and as did the rest of the group. Dinah and Quentin had both defeated Black Siren together, Rene had defeated Evelyn while Dig and the rest took down the last of the assassins.

The only two villains left standing were Savitar and Prometheus, if that. Oliver held Chase in a choke hold, but released him before he killed him. He looked around, and saw his odds; they weren't too good. It was time to move along with his plan.

"I knew it would come to this…" Chase said. "Your son is dead, Oliver."

For a horrifying moment, everyone in the room believed the villain. Oliver's world was about to come crashing down, but Kara stepped in.

"He's lying. See, while you thought I was out of the way, I actually rescued William from the motor boat on the western shore. He's safe, Oliver. I got him to safety," she reassured the archer.

Oliver breathed a sigh of relief while Adrian gritted his teeth in frustration. There had to be something left that he could do to ruin the other man once and for all. He turned to look at Savitar for any sort of help.

"You all think you've won, but you're not even close. I could kill you all right now before you can even blink," Savitar threatened. As soon as he said this, he began to run around the room, building up a charge. Barry, even in his weakened state, ran around and built up his own charge. The two threw their lightning at each other in an explosion of light that blinded the rest of the room's inhabitants for a moment.

When the brightness died down, Barry lay on the other side of the room, unconscious. Oliver wanted to run over to his friend to see if he was okay, they all did, but they were still recovering from the blinding light. Savitar's armor was severely damaged and possibly destroyed. The god of Speed crawled out from his metal suit, disorientated. He looked around to see if he'd achieved his goal of annihilating everyone in the vicinity, but was very disappointed.

Once Cisco was no longer so disorientated, he felt something change. He put his hand out and attempted to make a breach to STAR Labs just as a test, and it worked. Vibe laughed in astonishment, and urged the rest of the team to go through it.

"But, how? He dampened your powers…?" Alex was just as pleasantly dumbfounded as the rest of them.

"Wherever he was keeping it in his suit must have been destroyed, disabling the device along with it! Now hurry, get out of here so I can go get the rest—"

Prometheus indirectly cut him off. The evil archer refused to leave here without any sort of victory, so he pulled a bright green dart from his boot and flung it into Supergirl's thigh. It was Kara's yelp in pain that cut Cisco's statement off.

"Kara!" Alex ran to her adopted sister's side. Everyone had gone through the breach except Alex, Barry, Oliver, and Cisco.

Oliver slammed Chase into the wall, restraining him. They were all so close to winning, so close, and he wasn't about to lose. "Cisco, make a different breach."

"What? Why?"

"Make it to ARGUS. He needs to be put in a cell," the archer said simply.

Before Cisco could do what Oliver said, he was knocked to the ground by Savitar, and Alex was too. Now, the god of Speed held a much larger kryptonite shard in his hand and held it in front of Kara. It was then that Oliver truly began to panic.

"No! Barry please, don't do this!"

" _That's not my name!_ " Savitar shouted back. "Besides, it's just one more step to my ascendency. You will bow before me, Oliver Queen! You'll pay for everything!"

Prometheus began to laugh under Oliver's grip. "See? I told you, Oliver. Everyone you get close to, everything you touch, turns to ash. Your young prodigy, 'the Flash' used to want to save the world. Now? He wants nothing more than to destroy it. You set him on this path and because of that, your other friend will die. And it's all your fault. Did you hear me? All. Your. Fault."

The Green Arrow tried to ignore Chase, and only pleaded with Savitar once more. "Please! I am sorry for whatever I did to you, however we treated you, but you don't have to do this. Kara is your friend, _our_ friend."

Kara kept wincing in pain. The kryptonite slowly was getting closer to her, and she could feel all her veins in her body burn and that they were probably turning a sickly green color. This must have been the vision Barry saw in the breach. She didn't want to die, but if it was going to happen, she at least knew she'd be engulfed in Rao's light…

Unbeknownst to everyone else in the room, Barry began to come to. He groaned slightly as he sat up and pulled his cowl back from his face. Time slowed, and he saw that the horror he'd seen a few days earlier was coming to pass. First, it would be Kara, then Iris, and then whoever else Savitar decided to take away from him.

He'd started all of this with his mistake, with Flashpoint. Now, everyone's lives were worse off for it; Cisco's Caitlin's, Iris's, and who knew who else. He even felt bad for all that happened to Savitar because of his decision. The speed force told him that saving Iris was _his_ responsibility, and that he shouldn't have pinned it on anyone else.

But that's exactly what he did. He brought Kara into this mess, making Savitar align with Prometheus who ended up capturing Oliver's friends and family. Now, Kara was going to die because of his reckless decision, because of the pain of losing his parents. He wasn't much better than Savitar, really. Barry liked to think he was better than his evil time remnant, but in essence, they were the same. He'd become his own worst enemy.

 _You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain_ , Savitar's words played through his mind again. Really, he only had two choices, _die a hero_ or _become the villain_. The speed force was right. This was all his responsibility to end, and he would do it the only way he knew how.

As a hero.

As Savitar brought down the kryptonite towards Kara's heart, Barry began to run as fast as he could towards her. This time, he would be fast enough. This time he would make things right. He knew what this sacrifice would mean for him, but it didn't matter.

He'd reached his finish line.

Right before the shard reached Kara, Barry shoved her out of the way, but in doing so exposed himself and felt the kryptonite pierce through his skin. Savitar didn't have time to process what was going on because for once, he was just too slow.

Time regained its normal speed and Savitar realized what just happened. He instantly pulled the shard from Barry's chest and could already feel himself fading from existence. He'd hoped that Barry dying wouldn't have any effect on him as Eddie's didn't with Thawne, but somehow that wasn't the case. The speed force didn't seem to be on his side.

"What have you done?" he said quietly to Barry.

Barry made a weak reply and added a smile, "I'll die the hero so you don't have to become the villain."

The two men who were fundamentally the same made eye contact. Through Barry's blurry vision, he almost saw what looked like gratitude in his time remnant's eyes before he was swept away in blue energy. He sighed in relief. Savitar was gone.

Barry could barely hear Oliver shouting or feel Kara grabbing hold of him desperately. He could only pay attention to the searing pain in his chest and the sticky red liquid that was staining his suit. Cisco was going to be so mad, he thought to himself.

" _Barry!_ " Oliver had forgotten all about Chase and sprinted to his fallen friend. "Oh God, Barry! You're going to be alright, okay? Don't move, we're going to get you out of here, you're going to be fine…"

Alex and Cisco had gotten up finally. Vibe was full out hysterical trying to open breaches, but when Savitar had knocked him to the ground, his goggles had shattered and making breaches had become increasingly harder.

Alex had rushed to make sure Kara was okay, but the alien kept crying and crying. The amount of exposure to kryptonite made her so weak she could barely hold Barry in her arms, but she did it anyways.

"Barry, hey, stay with us okay? Please, please don't leave us," the Girl of Steel sobbed. "Alex, help, can you-can you do something?"

The DEO agent looked at the wound. It was bad—really bad. She was surprised the speedster hadn't faded away already. After making this deduction, Alex's eyes wandered to Oliver's and she conveyed to him what she knew. They shared a look of understanding, and the archer turned back to the speedster.

"I'm sorry Ollie, I'm sorry for everything…" Barry said deliriously.

"No," Oliver said sternly. "You have nothing to apologize for, you hear me? You're the hero Barry; you saved us. You defeated Savitar." He was furiously trying to fight the tears that rushed forward, but some escaped and dropped onto Barry's lightning bolt insignia.

"Just tell Iris I love her, okay...okay? She needs to keep running for-for me," the Scarlet Speedster slurred his words. He was starting to slip away. At this point Cisco had appeared at Barry's side, but he could tell no matter where the breach he'd just created went to, his friend wasn't going to make it. That was the hardest truth of all.

"God, Barry…" Oliver whispered to himself. Even in his state, Barry could tell Oliver was beginning to feel guilty for what was happening.

"Not your fault. It was my choice—" he winced and couldn't continue. This made Kara cry even more.

Supergirl had lost her entire planet when she was just a kid, so she knew what loss felt like. This though, this was something different entirely. She hadn't lost anyone from Earth before, and it was a feeling that tore through her like a wildfire. And Barry of all people! He was someone she admired pretty much more than anyone else in her life. To watch him slip away like this...it was torture.

"Barry please…" she whimpered.

He attempted to smile at her, but it only turned out to be a grimace. "You're my superfriend," Barry said simply. Kara choked back another sob.

His body started to go limp but Oliver tried to keep him from slipping into the darkness. "Come on Barry, you have to stay awake for me, okay? Remember...remember when you first got your powers and I said that you could inspire people?" Barry gave a weak nod. "Well, Barry," Oliver's voice wavered, "Barry, you inspired me to be hero just like you. Thank you so much...for giving me hope."

"You inspire me, Oliver…" Barry trailed off. He gave a shaky breath, and then the Flash was gone. Barry Allen was gone.

Oliver shielded all of his sadness and sorrow under rage. He balled his hands into fists and charged at Chase. He kept punching him and punching because it was his fault—his fault that Barry was dead.

Prometheus only smiled a bloody grin. "There's the killer that I know and love."

Alex noticed that if Oliver kept going, he was going to kill him. So, she left Kara's side for a moment and threw Oliver off of Chase.

"Stop! You keep at this he'll die." She gestured to the bloody face and slumped body that was Adrian Chase. "Don't let him win."

Oliver's eyes wandered around the room and landed on the breach Cisco had created. "We need to get out of here," he said. He fought past the urge to snap Adrian's neck and instead grabbed him by the collar and dragged him towards the breach. "Is this going to ARGUS?" Oliver asked softly.

"Y-yes," Cisco confirmed.

Oliver nodded and dragged Chase through the breach. The remaining three waited in the monastery for the archer to return so that they could bring Barry there together.

Kara still had tears streaming down her face, but other than that was impassive. She yanked the dart out of her thigh and then scooped Barry's body into her arms to carry him. Alex put a comforting hand on her shoulder, but she neither accepted it nor shrugged it off.

As soon as Oliver returned through the breach, Cisco changed the destination slightly to where he vibed the Wests would be. He gave a small nod and Oliver walked back through to the other side. Kara was next and she walked through still holding Barry in her arms.

All of a sudden, she was in front of Iris, Joe, and Wally. Each of them stared at whom she held with horror. They'd won, she knew that; they all did. But it was the price to win that they were _never_ prepared to pay.

* * *

 **...I did say it would be intense... Thanks for reading and please review to let me know what you thought.**

 **(P.S. The "friend" Savitar was referring to could be anyone in the Batman universe who'd heard the line spoken by Harvey Dent. Not super specific)**


	5. Out of the Blue, Into the Black

**Here is the next chapter. The chapter title is based off of the song by Neil Young, and I suggest listening to some of it as you read. There are also a few lines of the song that I incorporated into the story, so see if you can find them!**

 **Reviews are much appreciated! -LowTide1322**

 **( Disclaimer)**

* * *

Chapter 5: Out of the Blue, Into the Black

 _ **ARGUS Facility**_

"No…" Iris said barely above a whisper.

Her legs could barely support her as she saw the limp figure of her fiancé hanging from Kara's arms. She tried to convince herself that he was just unconscious, needed medical attention, but would be up and walking around their apartment the next day like always. This-this couldn't be anything serious...she hadn't just lost _Barry_ , had she?

Even as poorly steady as she was on her feet, Iris forced herself to surge forward and reach for Barry's face. He looked very peaceful; like when she would see him on rare occasions having a good night's sleep without any nightmares. She would just smile and stare before she could fall asleep herself.

But, there was more to the picture than met the eye.

Her gaze wandered down from his face and to his chest, and she gasped. Tears flooding in her eyes with the added wave of nausea that overcame her combined to make Iris's vision swim. The gruesome wound was all she could see and forgot about everything else in the room. All of that blood, _his_ blood stained the suit and some had gotten smudged on the lightning bolt insignia. The insignia that was a sign for hope in the world was tainted with the blood; blood belonging to the hero who bore the title as 'the man who saved Central City'. Anger swelled up inside her; who would do this? Who would _dare touch_ the Flash, Barry, _her_ Barry?

"Iris…"

She looked up and noticed Kara had knelt down with Barry in her arms and she found herself sitting down too. Iris saw tears trickle down Supergirl's face, and that was something she didn't even think was possible. If the Girl of Steel had broken down, then Barry wouldn't wake up any minute; he wouldn't walk back into their apartment, they'd never get their wedding, he'd never sing to Iris ever again, she'd never see him smile again, hear his laugh again…

Finally, Iris accepted it. Barry was dead.

Joe and Wally watched in sorrow as Iris's shock wore off, and she began to sob uncontrollably. She was breaking down, calling for Barry, holding his face, begging him to open his eyes even though she knew he never would again.

Joe couldn't move. He wanted to rush over and comfort Iris, to sling an arm around Wally and pull him into a hug, but he couldn't make himself do it. He wished so badly he could be strong for his kids, to make sure they would be okay, but he couldn't do that because his other kid was lying limp on the floor. _Dead_. His other kid was _dead_. That wasn't something he could fix with a few carefully chosen words and a hug. For once, Joe was the one to break down in front of everyone else.

Wally grabbed hold of his dad's arm to steady him, and then he pulled him into a comforting hug. Not just because Joe needed it, but because Wally needed it too. He let his father cry and cry into his shoulder while he let a few silent tears fall. He had to be strong, Barry showed him how to be strong. With a terrible thought, he realized he had so much more to learn from the man, and not just how to save people as the Flash or Kid Flash. Barry knew what to do in every aspect of life. Sure, he'd made lots of mistakes, but Wally came to understand that even someone that seemed so perfect and strong as him could have their flaws and still be a hero. Kid Flash realized that as soon as Barry was gone, there was a void left behind in all the lives he touched as the Flash and as himself that couldn't be filled. With that thought, Wally buried his face deeper in his father's chest.

The three Wests stayed like this for a long time, too long, and Oliver knew that they couldn't be like that forever. Still trying to get over his own grief, the archer wiped a lone tear from his eye and got moving.

"We can't stay here like this," he said, breaking what felt like a thousand years of no one speaking to each other. He moved across the room and put a hand on Kara's shoulder, then her arm, and lightly guided her up from her seated position beside Barry. Iris was still clinging to her fiancé and didn't seem to be letting go any time soon.

Alex moved to put an arm around Kara. "We should meet up with the others at STAR Labs...let them know what happened."

"And-and Felicity and the others who took the supply ship. I can make a breach to get them there," Cisco added. He was trying desperately to keep his eyes away from the body of his best friend that lay on the floor. The sight made him want to vomit every time he looked at it. Frankly, any time Barry got injured whether it be in a fight with a random meta to Zoom, Cisco would feel sick to his stomach. It pained him to see his friend hurt or injured, but to see him dead? It was Vibe's worst nightmare that he wasn't waking up from.

He opened a breach and hastily walked through it, obviously eager to leave the room. Oliver sighed, wishing he could have Cisco's powers and escape this situation they were in right now, but he couldn't. He was the leader now. He had to be the glue that held the teams together since Barry couldn't be anymore.

Oliver turned to Joe and Wally to get them moving, but the detective stopped him in his tracks. "This is on you. If he hadn't gone to help you...if he hadn't _met_ you none of this would have happened!"

"Dad…" Wally trailed off. He knew his father didn't mean what he was saying, or at least, didn't mean to say it. "We need to be here for Iris now, okay?" Kid Flash muttered.

Joe nodded his head and bumped shoulders with Oliver, pushing past the archer and then headed to where his daughter sat. He had to cover his mouth to keep himself from crying out at the sight of Barry, but he kept moving forward. He did his best to stay focused on Iris and he squatted next to her.

"Iris," he said, his voice breaking, "baby girl, we have to go—"

"No, Dad, I'm not leaving him! I'm not," she sobbed. She still held Barry's head in her hands, her fingers still running through her fiancé's soft hair like she used to when they'd lay down next to each other in the quiet of their home. Iris couldn't let go, she wouldn't.

Joe sighed and proceeded to try and help Iris stand. She fought against him weakly, but eventually they were both standing and walking towards the exit of the room. Just because Joe had gotten her to stand up and walk away from Barry didn't mean Iris wasn't yelling and sobbing the whole way out.

Kara had shrugged Alex's arm off of her and made her way over to Oliver and Wally as Joe and Iris exited. Her face was still impassive, but really she was dying inside. It had hit her hard as soon as she saw Iris that Barry had died to save _her_. It was really _her_ fault that he wasn't walking around celebrating their victory with everyone, with his fiancée. Kara Zor-El was the Girl of Steel, and she wasn't fast enough to see the kryptonite dart coming, she wasn't strong enough to overcome its effects. She couldn't save her best friend.

Now his family was broken. Earth-1 had lost its guardian angel.

Supergirl couldn't help but feel that maybe she was missing something. This whole experience was trying to teach her some sick lesson, but she didn't know what the moral could have been. All she knew was that she felt a burning desire to give Prometheus exactly what he deserved. Not to just kill him, no, he needed to suffer for everything that he'd done. After watching Iris break down like that, Kara knew that there was no forgiving Adrian Chase, Talia, and all the others who helped Savitar bring an end to the scarlet speedster. She would make them all pay; any villain that crossed her path would be put down immediately.

This thought brought her attention to her own earth, and the possible Daxamite invasion looming over National City. If Rhea ever showed her face to Kara again, no matter if she was Mon-El's mother or not, she wouldn't show any restraint. She lost Barry showing restraint, and she wasn't going to lose anyone else the same way ever again.

Kara Zor-El was never going to feel this way _ever again_.

"I can fly me and Alex to STAR too. We'll see you guys there," Kara said curtly before quickly exiting the room. Alex was about to follow her, but cast a worried glance back at Wally and Oliver. Kara wasn't dealing with this good at all, and if she had to be honest, the DEO agent was frightened. If she couldn't console her sister, than who would?

Oliver gave her a reassuring glance back. He could tell Kara was being distant as soon as they arrived at ARGUS, but after what happened, weren't they all?

Soon enough, it was just Wally and Oliver left.

"What should we do with...um...with Barry?" Wally gestured to where his brother lay on the floor. It didn't seem right to him at all for the Flash to be just lying there, alone, cold, _dead_. Maybe he should bring him to STAR Labs, Wally thought. Oliver seemed to have the same idea and the two nodded at each other. "I can carry him."

Wally sped over to where Barry lay and picked him up into his arms. He let out a couple quiet sobs before getting ready to run back to Central City.

"You're a strong kid, you know that Wally?" Oliver said quietly as to encourage the young speedster. The archer was barely holding it together now, but at Wally's age? He wouldn't be nearly as composed. Kid Flash was more mature than Oliver ever was.

"I learned from the best," he replied simply. With that, he was gone in a Flash of bright yellow lightning.

Oliver sighed and began to walk towards the exit. Maybe he'd "borrow" a motorcycle from ARGUS. At this point, he really didn't care if the facility would miss it. He could give it back to Lyla later.

The Green Arrow drove through the night and had a lot of time to think; probably too much time to think. Every now and then, his eyes would tear up looking back on the events of the day. Sometimes his vision would get so blurry he couldn't even see straight, risking an accident he _really_ didn't need to get into right then.

Just...why Barry? he thought to himself. Of all the heroes on the earth, the Flash was the one that was needed the most. Oliver already vowed to himself that he'd be damned if the world would be deprived of Barry Allen, and that's just what was happening.

Joe was right. If Barry wasn't so damn heroic he wouldn't have left to help Oliver with everything going on with Prometheus and Lian Yu. If he wasn't so righteous in trying to prove his own father innocent, he wouldn't have had a run in with the Arrow a couple years ago. Maybe if Oliver had just let the CSI be, his life would be better off; at least, he'd get to live it.

All the archer knew was that he didn't want to be without his friend, and he couldn't help feeling that everything was his fault. Even though in Barry's last moments he tried to help Oliver let go of his guilt over the situation, he couldn't get over it. He couldn't get over the fact that he was the reason for Barry even being in that monastery at the moment Savitar was about to kill Kara. He couldn't get over that inadvertently, Chase had won. He might not have taken everything from the Emerald Archer, but he took enough to leave him damaged.

So damaged he might never recover. In this timeline, anyway.

* * *

 _ **Central City**_

 _ **May 25th, 2017**_

"I need you all to be prepared for what you are about to witness. I know some of you found Mr. Allen to be a close friend, so this is going to be an aberration very different from any you've ever encountered before," Rip Hunter briefed the team. He wasn't captain anymore, but Sara didn't have quite as much know-how when it came to future-crippling events, so she let Rip take the reins for a little while. Besides, Barry was her friend. This was going to be tough for her, too.

The Legends nodded and one by one they all filed out of the Waverider. Gideon had left them a location where most, if not all, of their friends would be congregated on this date: Central City Cemetery. The team could only assume the occasion was the funeral of the Flash.

They walked in through the entranceway, all dressed in black attire. It was surprisingly beautiful outside, given the occasion, and there was a light breeze that crossed them. After another minute or so of walking, the team came upon whom they were looking for.

They saw Oliver and his team with Cisco and Team Flash. And then they saw poor Iris. From what they could tell, she looked like she'd been crying for but hadn't slept in days. The last time the group saw her she was very happy with Barry, so this must have been hitting her really hard. As they got closer, Sara noticed something shiny on Iris's left hand, and she instantly felt ten times worse.

"Look at her left hand," Sara whispered to Nate and Amaya who walked beside her.

"Why?" Nate asked.

"Her left hand. She's wearing a ring. They were engaged," she explained, her heart sinking.

"Oh no…" Amaya trailed off. She knew what it was like to lose a lover, but to lose the man you were going to spend the rest of your life with? She could never imagine.

They approached the group and at once Oliver picked up his head and alerted the rest of the party. Sara gave a small wave with a crooked grin, her signature, but no one else returned her smile. The former assassin didn't know why she expected anyone to. Maybe it was just her way of trying to make everyone feel better, or to make herself feel better. She'd put Barry Allen down the last time she saw him, and now she couldn't make up for that.

No, she thought to herself, she would make up for it. She'd do her job and fix the timeline so none of this would happen; Barry Allen would live. Sara didn't care about whatever Rip said about 2024. If Barry didn't have to die, he wouldn't. She couldn't save Laurel, and because of that she and her family fell apart. She didn't want to watch another family, another city, go through the loss of a hero.

The White Canary was snapped out of her thoughts by the tear-streaked face of Iris West.

"You-you're here! You're all here to fix this, right? Change time? Bring him back?"

"Iris...we don't know if we can, we screwed up—" Nate began.

Iris looked like she was on the verge of tears again, but held them back. "Central City needs the Flash...please… Sara, you came back—"

"That was the Lazarus Pit. It's destroyed, Iris, I'm sorry. Now, once you're gone, you can never come back…" she attempted to explain but trailed off. She couldn't give Iris the reassurance she wanted, or the hope that she needed. In this timeline, Barry was gone. Even if the Legends succeeded in saving him, that would create a whole other timeline with an almost identical Iris West, but not the one standing in front of them now. This Iris needed to get used to life without her fiancé until she was erased from existence. Either way, the answer wasn't comforting; especially to someone who was on an emotional rollercoaster that came with losing the love of her life. "It's a long story, but right now you should probably get some rest. You look like you haven't slept in days."

As Sara said this, Wally walked up and held Iris's hand and led her away. Right behind them was Oliver, looking a bit worse for wear. He too had dark circles around his eyes and walked unsteadily as he approached pain and hurt in his eyes was evident, and it made Sara want to kill whoever wronged her old friend.

She raced over to him and pulled him into a tight hug. The archer gratefully hugged her back. It was nice for him to have a familiar face around at a time like now. He just lost one of his best friends, more like his brother if he had to be honest, so seeing his other best friend comforted him a great deal to say the least.

Professor Stein walked over to Cisco and Caitlin. He was astonished by Dr. Snow's now white hair color, slightly fearful that she may have become Killer Frost, but looking into her eyes he could tell it was Caitlin looking back.

"I'm so sorry Cisco, Caitlin. It appears we've lost another friend…"

The young engineer and the doctor both hugged the professor. Soon enough, Jax joined in. It felt like yesterday the four of them with Barry had come together to take down Hewitt.

Oliver broke his and Sara's hug and they both glanced at the new tombstone that sat before them. Barry Allen's grave was set next to where both his mother and father were laid to rest. He'd have wanted it that way, everybody figured. They also thought that it would be best not to reveal that he was the Flash, other than having the name of the hero engraved in small print at the very bottom of the tombstone. That way at least whenever those who loved him came to visit here, they'd always remember the sacrifices that he made for the good of all, if no one else could know.

"What are you doing here, Sara?" Oliver asked quietly. His eyes searched hers for some kind of explanation, and he seemed to find one faster than it took for her to come up with a reply. "How did you hear about this? It's the timeline, isn't it? Barry's death…"

"I don't want to talk here," she gestured to the sizeable group behind them. "Is there somewhere we can go…?"

"We were all going to the Wests' house for some food and drinks. We can talk there."

Sara nodded. An hour or so later, Team Arrow, Flash, and Legends had congregated in Joe West's home. It was bittersweet; they all got to be together again, but the reason for it was just awful.

Oliver pulled Sara aside into the kitchen while everyone else was gathered in the living room.

He crossed his arms. "Okay, why did you guys travel here? Is there an aberration?"

"In a way, yes, but it's really complicated. There's this newspaper article from the future that says—"

"—Barry goes missing? I've seen it before...he showed it to me."

"Well...he doesn't go missing. It turns out he, um…" she didn't need to finish her thought. Oliver got the message loud and clear.

The archer let out a laugh in disbelief. "So he dies in the future too? Of course, why _would_ he get to live a normal long life? That's just too much to ask for isn't it?"

"That's the problem. Since he died already, he doesn't go on to save the multiverse in 2024. Because of that, time is broken and the future doesn't exist. It's-it's really bad, Ollie. The Waverider was in the timestream when this all happened and we saw it. It's _destroyed_. There's nothing left of it," Sara said, visibly shaken. The only other time Oliver saw her this scared was when Slade had returned to Starling City.

Which reminded him, he probably should have told her that Slade wasn't as crazy as before, he thought. He shook his head. One problem at a time.

"So the bottom line is, we have to go back and save him—"

"No, Oliver, you can't be a part of this. This timeline has to be erased. Everyone _in_ this timeline has to be erased. I'm sorry, but that's how it's going to have to be. If I brought you from here to the new timeline...there'd just be too many risks," she concluded, albeit vaguely. "I need you to tell me what happened."

Before Oliver could make an angry response, a third person had joined in on the conversation. "You can't just go back and change it," they turned to see Wally standing in the kitchen doorway. "Barry got rid of Savitar. You bring him back, Savitar comes back and Iris dies; and who knows what else would happen on Lian Yu."

"So what are you suggesting? We can't leave it like this!" Oliver's voice rose slightly. He hated seeing the West family so broken, team Flash in pieces, Kara so poor-spirited, and the list could go on and on. Barry's death had impacted them all in a way that changed their lives forever, so of course he'd want to fix what happened. He wanted his friend back. At the same time, he wasn't too eager to erase everyone from existence.

Oliver quickly composed himself as Wally continued. "The only reason Savitar exists is because of Flashpoint. Now, I'm not blaming Barry for anything, but if Flashpoint never happened then I'm pretty sure Savitar would never kill Iris. But since it did happen for that version of Barry, his story continues on like a constant loop," Wally noticed the confused glances being sent his way, so he got to his point. "If we prevent Flashpoint, then Savitar never exists, the original timeline is restored. Would that help the timestream? Sorry, I kinda only started eavesdropping a few minutes ago…" he said, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly.

Sara seemed to be deep in thought. Even after she defended Barry for creating the alternate timeline, it turned out that maybe everything _was_ the speedster's fault. Of course, he'd more than made up for that with his sacrifice of his life, but it didn't change the fact that either way time was broken because of him. She'd been thinking about this all wrong from the beginning, they didn't need to fix _this_ aberration, they needed to fix the ultimate aberration; _Flashpoint_.

"You're right, Wally. We need to go back to the night when Barry decided to save his mom. We convince him not to do it and—"

"—Flashpoint never happens. Barry lives," Oliver finished her sentence. "Except you said something about him _dying_ again in 2024?"

"Wha-what the hell is that about?" Wally stuttered. He knew 2024 was for some reason a significant year because of some article Joe mentioned, but he didn't really know why.

"Look, I don't want to get into this right now, but long story short in 2024 everyone is in trouble. There's a weapon that now, because of Flashpoint, destroys the multiverse and the timestream along with it. In the original timeline, Barry is the only one fast enough to depower the weapon, but in doing so sacrifices himself—"

"No, that's-that's not fair. We're restoring the timeline to _save_ him!" Wally argued.

Oliver sighed and rubbed his eyes. "Better to burn out than it is to rust, ey Barry?" He muttered to himself so no one else could hear. Seriously, the speedster would not go quietly in any timeline it seemed. "I agree," he said a few moments later. "Is there any way this can end with Barry alive?"

Sara sighed. "Rip doesn't think so. But I think there's something he's not telling us; something that happens after this battle in the future that might help us. I'm just not sure what it is," she said. "Honestly, I think that restoring the original timeline is our best bet. I mean, from the looks of things, how could it get any worse?"

Oliver and Wally glanced at each other. She made a compelling argument there.

"One condition," Oliver said. "I'm coming with on the Waverider. I know you said it's too big of a risk and all that, but I'm helping my friend. He created Flashpoint because he just lost his father. I should have been there for him then, so I will now."

"Oliver, if you remember this timeline, you could stain the original timeline, therefore making _another_ aberration—"

"You're not leaving without both of us," Wally interjected. The other two looked up at him, surprised. The young speedster continued, "This past year I've learned so much, whether it be about timelines or running really fast. Even if I don't have my speed in the new timeline, I need to remember everything we've gone through because of Flashpoint. I need to know and Barry will need to be reminded that speedsters aren't gods. Our actions have consequences. The bottom line is I don't want to make the same mistake he did."

Sara opened her mouth to reply, but couldn't find the words to make another argument. Wally was right. If the Legends couldn't be there, then someone had to teach the lesson learned from this timeline.

Oliver took her silence as an agreement to his condition. "We can leave tonight." Sara and Wally nodded in agreement.

The three of them walked back to rejoin the rest of the group. Oliver was eager to leave this timeline behind. Even still, he felt that somehow he was betraying Barry. He died to save them all and to atone for his own sins. If they changed time, it almost would feel like everything he did was just for nothing.

No, the archer thought to himself. Barry's sacrifice might be gone, but not forgotten.

* * *

 **Thanks so much for reading. Next chapter will focus a lot on Kara and Earth-38. Please review and let me know what you thought.**


	6. Flip the Switch

**Okay, so I may have lied about this being about Kara and Earth-38. That will be more of the next chapter. This used to be one big chapter, but it was getting too long and I was getting writer's block, so now I can start fresh now that this is out of my system.**

 **It's really hard for me to come up with emotional scenes and figure out how to put them onto paper, so that's why it's been so long since I've updated. I'm really excited for the next chapter since there will be more action and a very interesting character arc for Kara. Also, the title of this chapter is named after a common phrase in one of my other favorite CW shows...see if you can guess which one by the end of the chapter.**

 **Please enjoy! -LowTide1322**

 **( Disclaimer)**

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Chapter 6: Flip the Switch

 _ **May 23rd**_

 _ **Earth-1**_

Kara landed in front of STAR Labs and set Alex down. Almost instantly, she began walking towards the doors without even looking at her sister.

"Hey!" Alex moved to stand in front of her. "What's going on with you? You can't just stay silent, Kara—"

"I'm not doing this with you right now, Alex," the kryptonian took a step around the DEO agent, but Alex quickly moved in front of her again.

"Kara! I can't imagine what you must be feeling right now, which is why you need to talk to me! What we just witnessed was...insane—"

"I've seen lots of insane things," the kryptonian said monotonically. She could easily get around her adoptive sister, but wasn't in the mood to get yelled at later for it.

Alex knew her sister was putting a wall up to shield her feelings, and everytime she did that the wall was nearly impossible to demolish. That didn't mean that she wouldn't try to destroy it, though.

"I know how much Barry means—meant—to you, so you must be feeling awful right now and I just want to help you! I'm your sister, so don't think for a second I'm not going to care about how you're dealing with this."

Kara crossed her arms. "Fine. When we go home, we can talk. Right now let's just get inside." She finally pushed past Alex and walked through the entrance to STAR Labs. As soon as they got back to Earth-38, she most likely wouldn't have a heart-to-heart with her sister. She'd be too focused on the possible Daxamite invasion that was quite literally looming over National City. There wasn't any time for her _feelings_.

The two walked through the building and eventually found themselves in the cortex. Julian, H.R., Tracy and William were all there as well as Caitlin, Rene, Lance, Dinah, Diggle, Nyssa and Slade. It seemed that they all had been getting along nicely, meaning that none of them had started yelling at each other yet. As soon as they saw Kara and Alex, they instantly perked up with excitement and turned to face them. Diggle was the first to speak.

"Why didn't you guys come through the breach with us?" he asked. He looked between the two of them, trying to see if their expressions could give him some kind of answer. The sadness and anguish etched on their faces didn't make him feel any better. What could have happened that would make even Kara so distraught? Finally, Diggle's eyes wandered to Kara's hands, which were stained with blood, and from the looks of it there had been a lot. Panic festered in his chest as he tried to make sense of what it all could mean. Whose blood was that? What had Chase done to them?

Anger swelled up inside him and he had to ball his fists to avoid smashing one of the expensive computers. "Where is Chase?" he asked. His voice broke because he was on the verge of screaming.

Kara followed Dig's eyes down towards her hands, and quickly shielded them from view. At least, from William's view. H.R. noticed this and motioned for Tracy and Julian to take the youngest Queen elsewhere. He probably shouldn't have been seeing or hearing any of this right now. The physicist and CSI nodded and took the boy down the hall.

With William gone, Kara held her hands in front of her, examining them. She hadn't really noticed that when she'd been trying to help Barry, she had been trying to put pressure on his wound. Needless to say it was ineffective, but her hands _were_ effectively covered in red. Alex had also followed Dig's eyes to her sister's hands, and her eyes grew wide with shock. It was disgusting, and she could feel her chest tighten as her eyes grew teary.

"Kara…" she mumbled. Even though the blood on her sister's hands made her feel a little squeamish, Alex grabbed her hand and held onto to it, tight.

The tears streaming down the sisters' faces only made Dig panic even more. Had something happened to Oliver? Maybe the people on the ARGUS supply ship? So much could have happened between them all coming through the breach to now.

"Where is Chase?" he repeated, his voice dangerously low.

The thought of having to break the news to Dig about Barry made Kara choke back a sob. She thought that she could do this; be strong so everyone else wouldn't have to be.

But she broke down each time she glanced down at her hands.

She turned her back to the group and rushed out of the room to find a place where she could wash her hands thoroughly. Seeing the blood only reminded her of her failure to keep the ones she loved safe, to keep Barry alive.

"What happened, Alex?" H.R. asked quietly. The DEO agent never thought she'd ever hear the man speak in a tone so serious. Since she'd met him, he was always teeming with energy and excitement, but even he must have understood what a grave situation they were in. To see him calm and solemn only made the day's happenings more _real_.

"We defeated Chase and Savitar," she said finally.

"Why do I sense a 'but' coming?" Dig said, relaxing slightly at her words but tensed up again as he awaited her answer.

"It wasn't easy…" she continued. "We thought we'd won, Cisco was able to make breaches again, and we were almost out but then...then Chase hit Kara with a kryptonite dart. Savitar took the opportunity and was going to kill her. He-he held the kryptonite and we begged and begged for him not to do it, but he wasn't going to stop—"

"We just saw Kara though...she seemed alright. Isn't she?" Nyssa asked.

"It happened too fast. Before we knew it, Kara was thrown to the ground and Barry...Barry had taken her place."

H.R. sighed and put his head in his hands. "B.A., no…"

"What-what do you mean he took her place?" Dig stuttered. He wouldn't believe what Alex was implying. Barry wasn't _dead_ , that couldn't be right. Not his friend, not one of the best men that he knew.

"The blood on your sister's hands...it was the speedster's?" Slade spoke up. He didn't know much about any of these people, but he was smart enough to put two and two together.

Slade had to give the fast kid some credit. Sacrificing himself for others was no easy feat, and it took true courage; courage that sometimes Deathstroke wish he had. It seemed that the speedster took after Oliver in the sense that he'd do anything to protect those he loved…

His mind then shifted to his old friend. The archer was fond of the speedster, that much he knew. And, for the first time in a long time, Slade felt sorry for his old friend. Yes, he'd eventually felt remorse for everything that happened on the island and after, but this time, it was something that he _didn't_ cause.

A wave of empathy kept washing over him and he was surprised that it wasn't going away.

Alex nodded slowly as a response. She wanted desperately to leave and run after Kara, but for some reason she couldn't walk away from the small group of people. She was frozen in her place, awaiting everyone else's responses.

The air in the room was heavy and a silence that lasted for hours fell upon them.

Dig's eyes stung as he slowly accepted the fact that his friend wasn't going to walk into STAR Labs to celebrate the team's victories. None of this was fair. That son of a bitch Chase had taken someone away from them; another villain had taken someone they loved away from them.

He didn't even try to hold himself back from punching one of the computers this time. He swung his fist and shattered the screen, leaving a bloody dent in the glass. Alex flinched at the noise and looked at her shoes to avoid looking at the somber group before her.

"John...I'm sorry," Dinah offered, but her comforting words were lost on him.

In a corner of the room, a bright blue breach sparked to life, making almost everyone jump. From it walked Thea, Felicity, Samantha, Curtis and Cisco.

"Hey…" A teary-eyed Felicity walked to over to John and enveloped him in a hug. Her voice sounded strained and her eyes were red and puffy. She and the three others on the ARGUS boat hadn't gotten very far when Cisco appeared in their midst and explained to them what had happened. Felicity had felt like she'd been punched in the gut; she loved Barry. Her world instantly grew darker as soon as she heard the news. He was the one thing that helped her escape the constant evil pressing on their lives, but now it had spread to him too. She'd never get to scold him for being too reckless, to thank him for saving all their lives, to hug him because she was scared she'd lose him. She _did_ lose him, and it was killing her.

For a moment, it seemed like everyone was going to be okay. But looking at Dig like this, she knew that nothing was ever going to be okay ever again. With the loss of the Flash came the breaking of all the heroes in their world.

Thea blinked hard a few times before glancing around the room. All of this imprisonment and then escape with the added teleportation was a bit much for her to take in. Seeing Slade at the other end of the cortex didn't help matters, but Cisco had vaguely explained that the old villain wasn't who she thought he was anymore. Besides, it would be hardly appropriate to start up an argument at a time like now. While Thea didn't know Barry as well as the others, she was always in awe of him. She held him in the highest of respects for being the inspiring hero that he was, and she knew the world would never be the same without him.

Once her eyes focused, it looked like almost everyone was accounted for, except for her brother. "Where's Oliver?" Thea asked.

Cisco set down his goggles and rubbed his eyes. His voice could only be heard by the few who were within a couple feet from him. "He was still at ARGUS when I left, but maybe he left with Wally—"

Almost as if right on cue, Kid Flash's yellow lightning lit up the cortex. Wally then appeared before them looking as somber as ever. He'd just set Barry's body down on one of the gurneys in a room branching off of the cortex. It was strange; so many times had Barry laid down there to be patched up after a bad run-in with a meta and would be up in a couple of hours. Now, he wasn't going to wake up ever again.

"Me and Oliver decided it'd be best to bring Barry here," he said simply. "Iris and my dad are back at the house, and Oliver should be here soon."

The large group of heroes gave each other comforting words and then slowly dispersed themselves within STAR Labs. After what felt like hours, Alex finally found it in herself to walk out of the cortex to comfort Kara, wherever she ran off to. Her sister turned out to be gathering what little possessions they had brought with them from Earth-38, seemingly preparing to leave. Alex raised her eyebrows in surprise.

"What are you doing?"

"What does it look like I'm doing, Alex?" Kara replied coldly. "We need to get back to our earth. I've been gone too long already."

Alex gave a small gasp, taken aback by her sister's tone. "It's just…They want us to stay for a funeral—"

"The only funeral I'll be attending is Rhea's unless she surrenders, wherever she is…"

"You're not serious," Alex scoffed. Her sister's silence, however, proved that she was. "Everyone needs you to be there: Oliver, Cisco, _Iris_. You can't just leave now."

"Has anyone thought about what _I_ need? I can't be here, Alex. Everything that happened today was _my_ fault. I'm not letting the same thing happen to National City. I won't fail again," Kara said. She finally collected all of her belongings and tossed a bag at Alex, who wasn't expecting to have it thrown at her and staggered backwards. Kara's "toss" was actually more like she chucked a bowling ball at her.

She couldn't believe this. None of it was Kara's fault, and Alex was surprised that Kara thought so. Her sister had grown so much over the past two years, and she'd become too mature to believe that she was the only one to blame. This wasn't who Supergirl was; this wasn't the hero of earth and it certainly was _not_ Alex's sister.

Then again, she was grieving. Loss could change people so drastically that they would become unrecognizable. Barry had died hardly even a few hours ago, so of course Kara would be completely devastated. Unfortunately, National City couldn't afford to have its hero in such a state at a time like now. Alex only hoped that somehow her sister would be able to pull herself together enough to defeat the Daxamites the _right_ way. Otherwise, Earth-38 might as well have lost its savior too.

"I'm sorry, Kara," Alex said with the most sincerity she ever could have expressed.

"I know," Kara replied, her tone softer than it had been before. "Me too."

The two walked to back to the cortex to find Cisco. Vibe didn't give any judging glances when they said that they wanted to leave, he only led them to the breach room without saying a word. As they walked down a hallway, the three found themselves face to face with Oliver. He was the one to cast them judging glances when he heard of their desire to leave.

"You-you're leaving? Now?"

"I have to," Kara said curtly. "You wouldn't understand—"

"I wouldn't understand?! I am the _only_ one who understands, Kara! I know what it feels like to lose my world and then some. And after all of that, I didn't abandon my friends," Oliver caught a glimpse of a hurt expression on Kara's face before it returned to impassive. He pinched the bridge of his nose. That didn't come clutch how he wanted it to… "Nothing that happened was your fault—"

"Save it, Oliver," Kara snapped. "Don't tell me how it was 'Barry's choice'; don't tell me that it couldn't have been prevented, because—"

"No, I won't, because it was _my_ fault."

Kara tilted her head to the side. She wasn't expecting him to say that. She'd placed all the blame on her own shoulders, she couldn't even imagine anyone else feeling the same way.

"It's all my fault," Oliver continued, "for Prometheus in the first place. I'm the reason you or Barry were even there. Hell, I could go even further; if future me didn't treat Savitar like crap, then maybe we wouldn't be in this mess. Maybe if I'd stopped Barry from going back in time after his father died, he would still be here!" he yelled, seemingly to himself and no longer at Kara.

Alex wiped a tear from her eye. For some reason, she found herself relating to the archer on a deeper level than she anticipated. She didn't need to know Oliver very long to understand he rarely got this emotional, and she knew he only was to try to prove to Kara she wasn't to blame. The amount of strength that it took to be open like this—to _admit_ this, it was worthy of reverence.

Cisco decided to remain silent. He, like Alex, never thought that Oliver would ever be this open with other people. If Barry were here, he would have been proud to see his friend be mature enough to share his opinion with Kara in order to help her.

However, the Flash _wouldn't_ be there to see it.

Oliver sighed and tried to keep his voice steady. He opened his mouth and closed it, like he was about to say something but decided against it. Instead, he settled on whispering to himself, "It's just like with Tommy, I guess; it should have been me."

Kara suddenly felt a swell of emotion overcome her as she rushed to hug Oliver. She'd wanted to be cold and aloof, but her humanity was getting the better of her.

"You have to understand, Oliver," she said in their embrace, "I can't be here. Looking at the pain in their eyes—in _your_ eyes—hurts me more than kryptonite ever will. You have to believe me."

Kara broke the hug and gathered her belongings. She silently made a vow to herself that her humanity would stay buried as long as it needed to be. If she let it take control, she'd never leave and never get back home to stop Rhea.

From now on, her duty as Supergirl came first. She couldn't afford to think otherwise.

"We ready?" Cisco asked.

The two Danvers nodded. Alex took a glance at Oliver, and he held out his hand. The DEO agent scoffed and pulled the archer into a hug.

"Don't give up on her, no matter what," he whispered in her ear. He didn't really care if Kara heard or not, but she needed all the support she could get right now. He had a feeling the superhero could convince her sister otherwise, so he needed to make sure Alex wouldn't let Kara off the hook. He couldn't let her go down the same dark path he once did.

"Never," Alex replied sternly. The two broke the hug and Cisco's breach blinked in and out of existence. Eventually, with a lot of concentration and cursing on Vibe's end, it became stable.

Cisco sighed and clapped a hand on each of their shoulders. "I bid you both a very fond farewell."

Alex smiled ever so slightly, " _Lord of the Rings_?"

"Yeah. Nice, Danvers. Didn't know you were a fellow nerd," Cisco teased.

"Yeah, well, sometimes me and Kara would pull all-nighters binge-watching the movies. Maybe when we get back we can do that again," Alex said as she slung an arm around her sister.

"Whatever you want, Alex," the kryptonian replied rudely. Alex's smile slipped off of her face. Kara walked forward into the breach, without looking back.

Alex, on the other hand, turned to face her new friends. "I'll see you soon. We both will," she said. She took a couple hesitant steps forward to the edge of the breach. If she took one more step, nothing was ever going to be the same. Her relationship with Kara would still be in tact, but her sister was definitely scarred. An unstable kryptonian was never a good thing.

She took a deep breath and trudged forwards. Alex hoped that she could help mend the damage done to Kara's heart, for the sake of National City, if not the world.

Oliver looked on as Alex finally disappeared through the breach. Cisco closed the blue portal and gave Oliver a small smile before exiting to go back to the cortex.

The archer didn't really know where his feet were taking him, but eventually he found himself in the time vault where he and Barry had been talking not two days earlier. All of that felt so long ago now. The more Oliver thought back on it, the more he realized that Barry hadn't really planned on making it through this whole ordeal in one piece. All of his talk about wondering what would happen to the future if he wasn't in it…

How could Oliver be so _stupid_? He was so focused on saving William he didn't even realize his friend was planning on being the sacrificial lamb for all of them. Maybe if he'd noticed sooner, maybe if he never got involved with Chase, maybe if he'd stopped Flashpoint from happening, Oliver could have saved his friend. But no, once again the universe has taken someone away that Oliver Queen cared about.

Oliver looked back to where the future article had been, but now there was just a blank page. It was just another reminder that Barry was gone. He slammed his bow into the wall repeatedly, until it snapped, and at which point the archer sunk to his knees and held his head in his hands. It took everything in him not to scream.

He heard footsteps coming down the hallway, and expected it to be John or Felicity or maybe even Quentin.

"Ollie…?"

Oliver lifted his tear-streaked face from his hands to see Thea standing in the doorway, looking deeply concerned. He let out a sob at the sight of his sister, and she instantly fell to her knees beside him.

"It should have been me, Thea," he choked out. "First Tommy, then Laurel, now Barry…"

"It's okay, Ollie. It's not your fault," Thea enveloped him in a hug. Usually, Oliver was the one who would end up comforting her, but she decided that it was time for her to return the favor.

The two stayed like that for hours it seemed. Oliver had cracked, and it could only be his family that could help put him back together.

The Queens weren't the only ones with heavy hearts. All of Central City could feel a shift in energy, even if they didn't know what it meant. National City anxiously awaited its heroine's response to the evil hovering over their city. Earth-1 had lost a hero.

Little did Earth-38 know, it might have lost its heroine as well...

* * *

 **Yes, this chapter was a bit short, but the next one will be longer. Hopefully it will be out sooner rather than later. The name of the show the chapter title comes from is...you guessed it, Vampire Diaries! Thanks for reading! Please review to let me know what you thought!**

 **(P.S. I will never stop loving Lord of the Rings. I saw an opportunity for a reference and a parallel, so I couldn't resist!)**


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